The vector-valued coarea formula provides a relationship between the integral of the Jacobian of a map from high dimensions down to low dimensions with the integral over the measure of the fibers of this map. We explore minimizers of this functional, proving existence using both a variational approach and an approach with currents. Additionally, we consider what properties these minimizers will have and provide examples. Finally, this problem is considered in metric spaces, where a third existence proof is given.

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"This thesis investigates several non-linear analogues of Lagrange functions in the hope of answering the question 'Is it possible to generalise Lagrange functions such that they may be applied to a range of nonconvex objective problems?' The answer to this question is found to be yes for a particular class of optimization problems. Furthermore the thesis asserts that in derivative free optimization the general schema which is most theoretically and practically appealing involves the reformulation of both objective and constraint functions, whilst the least practically successful approach for everything but the most simple convex case is the augmented Lagrangian approach." / Doctor of Philosophy

"This thesis investigates several non-linear analogues of Lagrange functions in the hope of answering the question 'Is it possible to generalise Lagrange functions such that they may be applied to a range of nonconvex objective problems?' The answer to this question is found to be yes for a particular class of optimization problems. Furthermore the thesis asserts that in derivative free optimization the general schema which is most theoretically and practically appealing involves the reformulation of both objective and constraint functions, whilst the least practically successful approach for everything but the most simple convex case is the augmented Lagrangian approach." / Doctor of Philosophy

Στο πέρασμα των αιώνων, οι άνθρωποι αναζητούσαν νόμους που να περιγράφουν τα φαινόμενα του φυσικού κόσμου. Το 1744 ο Γάλλος επιστήμονας Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertious έθεσε την αρχή ότι η φύση ενεργεί πάντα με τέτοιο τρόπο ώστε να ελαχιστοποιείται κάποια ποσότητα που ο ίδιος ονόμασε «δράση». Στη μαθηματική θεμελίωση της σχετικής θεωρίας των μεγίστων και ελαχίστων των βαθμωτών ποσοτήτων συνέβαλλε ο Ελβετός μαθηματικός Leonard Euler. Στα προβλήματα του Λογισμού των Μεταβολών μελετάμε παραστάσεις που περιέχουν μία ή περισσότερες άγνωστες πραγματικές συναρτήσεις μιας ή περισσοτέρων πραγματικών μεταβλητών. Έτσι, αναζητούμε μια συνάρτηση που να δίνει στη συγκεκριμένη παράσταση μέγιστη ή ελάχιστη τιμή. Οι παραστάσεις αυτές ονομάζονται συναρτησιακά και αποτελούν μια γενίκευση της έννοιας της συνάρτησης. H διπλωματική αυτή εργασία αποτελεί μια βιβλιογραφική επισκόπηση των άμεσων μεθόδων που χρησιμοποιούνται στην επίλυση των προβλημάτων του λογισμού των μεταβολών.Κάτω από αυτό το πρίσμα, παρουσιάζονται οι προσεγγιστικές λύσεις, η εφαρμογή τους καθώς και οι πρόσφατες βελτιώσεις τους. Συγκεκριμένα, στο κεφάλαιο 1 αναφέρονται κάποιες βασικές έννοιες του λογισμού των μεταβολών . Στο κεφάλαιο 2 γίνεται λόγος για τέσσερις άμεσες μεθόδους επίλυσης συναρτησιακών προβλημάτων. Στο κεφάλαιο 3 περιγράφονται τέσσερις μέθοδοι, οι οποίες προσεγγίζουν τη λύση μη γραμμικών προβλημάτων του λογισμού των μεταβολών με ακρίβεια 2ης τάξης ως συνάρτηση του μήκους βήματος. Στο κεφάλαιο 4 παρουσιάζονται κάποιες νέες τεχνικές επίλυσης των προβλημάτων που συζητήθηκαν. Στο κεφάλαιο 5 αναφέρεται η χρήση υποπρογραμμάτων (“packages”) που χρησιμοποιούνται μέσω συστημάτων λογισμικού όπως το Maple και το Mathematica. / Over the centuries, people seeking laws that describe the phenomena of the natural world. In 1744 the French scientist Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertious established the principle that nature always acts in such a way as to minimize a quantity he called ‘action’. The Swiss mathematician Leonard Euler helped the mathematical foundations of the theory of maximum and minimum of the scalar quantities. Problems of the Calculus of Variations contain unknown functions of one or more real variables. So, the aim is to find a function that maximizes an integral. This project deals with direct methods which give approximate solutions to functional problems. Furthermore, their implementation and their recent improvements are described. Specifically, in Chapter 1 some basic concepts of calculus of variations are discussed. In chapter 2 four direct methods of solving functional problems are illustrated. In the chapter four methods which approximate the solution of nonlinear problems in the calculus of variations with second order accuracy in terms of the step length are described and some results are pointed out. Chapter 4 presents some new techniques to solve these problems. The chapter 5 refers the use of “packages” used by software systems such as Maple and Mathematica.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-05-17T16:51:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2015-08-12. Added 1 bitstream(s) on 2016-05-17T16:54:15Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000864520.pdf: 1214576 bytes, checksum: a6e962494df1a9c603f04f9f4dbd0b94 (MD5) / Neste trabalho são apresentados o famoso problema da braquistócrona e diferentes soluções através da teoria do cálculo variacional e através de conceitos da geometria e física, envolvendo situações com condições análogas às da braquistócrona. Uma proposta didática adequada a alunos do Ensino Médio que é adaptável a alunos do Ensino Fundamental foi também apresentada / In this work it was presented the famous brachistochrone problem and the di erent solutions through the theory of variational calculus and through the concepts of geometry and physics, involving situations with similar conditions to those of brachistochrone. Adequate didactic proposal to high school students which is also suitable for middle school students was presented

In this thesis we look into Emmy Noether's life and works. An overview of Emmy Noether's life gives context to understanding her approach to mathematics which produced seminal works. In Invariante Varationsprobleme, Noether proved the connection between symmetry and conservation laws; Noether's theorem is the foundations of modern physics. In Idealtheorie in Ringberichen, she proved the ascending chain condition on ideals in an abstract setting; this work started the "algebrization of mathematics" in 20th century. Noether continued to produce phenomenal works and influenced numerous branches of mathematics. By understanding Emmy Noether's life and her works, one achieves a greater understanding to the foundations of 20th century mathematics.

Orientador: Renata Zotin Gomes de Oliveira / Banca: Suzinei Aparecida Siqueira Marconato / Banca: Maria Beatriz Ferreira Leite / Resumo: O principal objetivo deste trabalho é o estudo da teoria do Cálculo de Variações com ênfase na Equação de Euler, que trata de uma condição necessária para uma função ser extremo de um funcional. Existe uma grande variedade de problemas, mas neste trabalho trataremos de problemas com fronteiras fixas, tempo final livre, estado final livre, funcional dependente de mais de uma função e problemas com alguns tipos de restrições. Dois problemas do Cálculo de uma variável e um exemplo de controle ótimo são estudados para ilustrar a aplicabilidade do Cálculo Variacional / Abstract: The main purpose of this work is the study of the theory of the Calculus of Variations, with emphasis on the Euler equation, that is a necessary condition for a function to be an extreme of a functional. There are a large variety of problems but we will consider the problem of xed boundary, free nal time, free nal state, functionals that contain several independent functions and problems with some constraints. Two problems of the Calculus of one variable and an example of optimal control problem are studied to illustrate the applicability of Variational Calculus / Mestre

Mean-field games (MFG) are models of large populations of rational agents who seek to optimize an objective function that takes into account their state variables and the distribution of the state variable of the remaining agents. MFG with congestion model problems where the agents’ motion is hampered in high-density regions. First, we study radial solutions for first- and second-order stationary MFG with congestion on Rd. The radial case, which is one of the simplest non one-dimensional MFG, is relatively tractable. As we observe, the Fokker-Planck equation is integrable with respect to one of the unknowns. Consequently, we obtain a single equation substituting this solution into the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. For the first-order case, we derive explicit formulas; for the elliptic case, we study a variational formulation of the resulting equation. For the first case, we use our approach to compute numerical approximations to the solutions of the corresponding MFG systems. Next, we consider second-order stationary MFG with congestion and prove the existence of stationary solutions. Because moving in congested areas is difficult, agents prefer to move in non-congested areas. As a consequence, the model becomes singular near the zero density. The existence of stationary solutions was previously obtained for MFG with quadratic Hamiltonians thanks to a very particular identity. Here, we develop robust estimates that give the existence of a solution for general subquadratic Hamiltonians. Additionally, we study first-order stationary MFG with congestion with quadratic or power-like Hamiltonians. Using explicit examples, we illustrate two key difficulties: the lack of classical solutions and the existence of areas with vanishing densities. Our main contribution is a new variational formulation for MFG with congestion. With this formulation, we prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions. Finally, we devise a discretization that is combined with optimization algorithms to numerically solve various MFG with congestion.

We study an energy functional able to describe low energy configurations of a two dimensional lattice with dislocations in a nonlinear elasticity regime. The main result can be described as follows: configurations of energy comparable to the lattice spacing consist of piecewise constant microrotations with small angle grain boundaries between them. Moreover, we also give bounds to the energy of particular configurations describing a small angle symmetric tilt grain boundary.