On the stability of solutions of semilinear elliptic equations with Robin boundary conditions on Riemannian manifolds

We investigate existence and nonexistence of stationary stable nonconstant solutions, i.e. patterns, of semilinear parabolic problems in bounded domains of Riemannian manifolds satisfying Robin boundary conditions. These problems arise in several models in applications, in particular in Mathematical Biology. We point out the role both of the nonlinearity and of geometric objects such as the Ricci curvature of the manifold, the second fundamental form of the boundary of the domain and its mean curvature. Special attention is devoted to surfaces of revolution and to spherically symmetric manifolds, where we prove refined results.

On fully nonlinear CR invariant equations on the Heisenberg group

In this paper we provide a characterization of second order fully nonlinear CR invariant equations on the Heisenberg group, which is the analogue in the CR setting of the result proved in the Euclidean setting by A. Li and the first author (2003). We also prove a comparison principle for solutions of second order fully nonlinear CR invariant equations defined on bounded domains of the Heisenberg group and a comparison principle for solutions of a family of second order fully nonlinear equations on a punctured ball.