Graph-to-local limit for the nonlocal interaction equation

Antonio Esposito, Georg Heinze and André Schlichting

J. Math. Pures Appl. 194, 103663 (2025)

Abstract

We study a class of nonlocal partial differential equations presenting a tensor-mobility, in space, obtained asymptotically from nonlocal dynamics on localising infinite graphs. Our strategy relies on the variational structure of both equations, being a Riemannian and Finslerian gradient flow, respectively. More precisely, we prove that weak solutions of the nonlocal interaction equation on graphs converge to weak solutions of the aforementioned class of nonlocal interaction equation with a tensor-mobility in the Euclidean space. This highlights an interesting property of the graph, being a potential space-discretisation for the equation under study.

A geometric graph obtained as iid. samples from a distribution supported on a two-dimensional submanifold embedded in three dimensions with edge-weights given by the distance to the neighbors.
A geometric graph obtained as iid. samples from a distribution supported on a two-dimensional submanifold embedded in three dimensions with edge-weights given by the distance to the neighbors.

Publication history

Preprint
2023-06-06
Received
2023-12-22
Published online
2025-01-16
Published
2025-02

Topics: graphs, nonlocal equations, variational convergence, gradient flows