
1 Introduction
This paper analyzes the long time behavior of diffusion processes with infinitesimal generator given by
a mixed type Kimura operator Lon one-dimensional and two-dimensional manifolds with corners.
In two-space dimensions, the mixed type Kimura operator Lacts on functions defined on a manifold
with corner P. A boundary point p∈bP has a relatively open neighborhood Vthat is homomorphic to
either R2
+or R+×R, where we assume that pmaps to (0,0). We say that pis a corner in the first case
and an edge point in the second case. More details are presented in Section 5.
In this paper, Lis a degenerate second-order differential operator such that for each edge, the coeffi-
cients of the normal part of the second-order term vanish to order one or two. For an edge point p, when
written in an adapted system of local coordinates on R+×R,Ltakes the form:
L=a(x, y)xm∂xx +b(x, y)xm−1∂xy +c(x, y)∂yy +d(x, y)xm−1∂x+e(x, y)∂y,(1)
where we assume that a, b, c, d, e are smooth functions and that a(x, y)>0 and c(x, y)>0. Also
m∈ {1,2}. When m= 1, the edge x= 0 is of Kimura type in that the coefficients vanish linearly
towards it. When m= 2, the edge x= 0 is of quadratic type as the coefficients now vanish quadratically.
For a corner p, as an intersection point of two edges, Lhas the following normal form:
L=a(x, y)xm∂xx +b(x, y)xm−1yn−1∂xy +c(x, y)yn∂yy +d(x, y)xm−1∂x+e(x, y)yn−1∂y,(2)
when written in an adapted system of local coordinates on R2
+, where a(x, y)>0, c(x, y)>0, and
m, n ∈ {1,2}.
Associated to the operator Lis a C0semigroup Qt=etL solution operator of the Cauchy problem
∂tu=Lu
with initial conditions u(x, 0) = f(x) at t= 0. The operator etL and some of its properties are presented
in detail in [10]. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the long time behavior of etL, and in
particular convergence to appropriately defined invariant measures.
It turns out that the number of possible invariant measures and their type (absolutely continuous
with respect to one-dimensional or two-dimensional Lebesgue measures or not) strongly depend on the
structure of the coefficients (a, b, c, d, e). We thus distinguish the different boundary types that influence
the long time asymptotics of transition probabilities.
Definition 1.1. A Kimura edge Eis called a tangent (Kimura) edge when d(0, y)=0and a transverse
(Kimura) edge when d(0, y)>0.
A quadratic edge Eis called a tangent (quadratic) edge when d(0,y)
a(0,y)<1, a transverse (quadratic) edge
when d(0,y)
a(0,y)>1, and a neutral (quadratic) edge when d(0,y)
a(0,y)= 1.
We assume that:
Assumption 1.1. Every edge is either tangent, transverse, or neutral.
Note that we do not consider the setting with d(0, y)<0 on a Kimura edge. In such a situation,
diffusive particles pushed by the drift term d(0, y)<0 have a positive probability of escaping the domain
P. We would then need to augment the diffusion operator with appropriate boundary conditions.
The long-time analysis in two-dimensions for a class of operators including a specific example of
interest in the field of topological insulators [6] is given in section 5. In the application in [6], the
degenerate diffusion equation describes reflection coefficients of wavefields propagating in heterogeneous
media, which model the separation between topological insulators; see [5, 7]. Before addressing two-
dimensional operators, we consider the simpler one-dimensional setting, where we need to consider ten
different scenarios, listed in table 1 below, depending on the form of the generator Lat the domain’s
boundary. These cases are analyzed in detail in sections 2-4.
To describe all invariant measure on the interval [0,1] in one dimensional, consider
L=a(x)xm(0)(1 −x)m(1) d2
dx2+b(x)xm(0)−1(1 −x)m(1)−1d
dx,(3)
with a(x), b(x)∈C∞([0,1]).
For i= 0,1, we say that x=iis of Kimura type when m(i) = 1 and of quadratic type when m(i) = 2.
When x=iis of Kimura type, we assume that the vector field b(x)d
dx is inward pointing at x=i. For
brevity, we use eaand e
bto denote
ea(x) = a(x)xm(0)(1 −x)m(1),e
b(x) = b(x)xm(0)−1(1 −x)m(1)−1.(4)
2