Zhaolong Han

This work contributes to nonlocal vector calculus as an indispensable mathematical tool for the study of nonlocal models that arises in a variety of applications. We define the nonlocal half-ball gradient, divergence and curl operators with general kernel functions (integrable or fractional type with finite or infinite supports) and study the associated nonlocal vector identities. We study the nonlocal function space on bounded domains associated with zero Dirichlet boundary conditions and the half-ball gradient operator and show it is a separable Hilbert space with smooth functions dense in it. A major result is the nonlocal Poincaré inequality, based on which a few applications are discussed, and these include applications to nonlocal convection–diffusion, nonlocal correspondence model of linear elasticity and nonlocal Helmholtz decomposition on bounded domains.

We prove two compactness results for function spaces with finite Dirichlet energy of half-space nonlocal gradients. In each of these results, we provide sufficient conditions on a sequence of kernel functions that guarantee the asymptotic compact embedding of the associated nonlocal function spaces into the class of square-integrable functions. Moreover, we will demonstrate that the sequence of nonlocal function spaces converges in an appropriate sense to a limiting function space. As an application, we prove uniform Poincaré-type inequalities for sequence of half-space gradient operators. We also apply the compactness result to demonstrate the convergence of appropriately parameterized nonlocal heterogeneous anisotropic diffusion problems. We will construct asymptotically compatible schemes for these type of problems. Another application concerns the convergence and robust discretization of a nonlocal optimal control problem.