Partial Differential Equations, Fall 2020, Homework 1

Due on Monday, September 14, 2020.

1. (a) Write an explicit example of a (non identically zero!) function in Cc∞ (R).

(b) For a ball B(x, R) ⊂ Rn , construct an explicit function u ∈ Cc∞ (B(x, R)).

2. Construct a function ϕ so that ϕ ∈ Cc∞ (R) is a function that is identically 1 on [−1, 1],
vanishes outside [−2, 2], and 0 ≤ ϕ ≤ 1.

3. Construct an explicit example of a partition of unity {ϕj }∞ j=−∞ on R. In other words,

{ϕj } must satisfy the following:
(a) ϕj ∈ Cc∞ (R),
For every x ∈ R, ϕj (x) = 0 for all but finitely many j,
(b) P
(c) ∞ j=−∞ ϕj (x) = 1 for all x ∈ R.

4. Assume that f : Rn → R is smooth. Prove

X 1
f (x) = Dα f (0)xα + O(|x|k+1 )
α!
|α|≤k

as x → 0 for each k = 1, 2, . . . . This is Taylor’s formula in multiindex notation. (Hint:

fix x ∈ Rn and consider the function of one variable g(t) := f (tx)).