Notions of affinity in calculus of variations with differential forms (Q2629561)

In the present paper, the authors consider minimization problems involving differential forms on Euclidean spaces, which is a natural sequel of a previous paper with \textit{B. Dacorogna} [J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 17, No. 4, 1009--1039 (2015; Zbl 1317.49015)]. Following [loc. cit.], they introduce the notion of convexity with respect to the exterior structure, which leads to the notion of the so-called ext-int. one affine functions. Their main result consists in characterizing such functions through algebraic relations involving the order of the forms. As a consequence, they infer that the nonlinearity of such affine functions is related to the parity of the order of the concerned forms.