Estimates of \(s\)-numbers of a Sobolev embedding involving spaces of variable exponent (Q2352878)

Let \(\Omega\) be a bounded open set in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) and \(p:\Omega \rightarrow (1,\infty)\) be a measurable (exponent) function. The variable exponent Lebesgue space \(L^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega)\) consists of all measurable functions \(f\) on \(\Omega\) such that \(\rho_{p(\cdot)}(f/\lambda) <\infty\) for some \(\lambda>0\), where \[ \rho_{p(\cdot)}(f):=\int_{\Omega} |f(x)|^{p(x)}\,dx. \] It is known that \(L^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega)\) is a Banach space with respect to the norm \[ \|f\|_{p(\cdot)} = \inf\left\{ \lambda>0: \rho_{p(\cdot)}(f/\lambda) \leq 1\right\}. \] The corresponding Sobolev space \(W^{1,p(\cdot)}(\Omega)\) is normed by \(\|f\|_{1,p(\cdot)}=\|f\|_{p(\cdot)} + \||\nabla f|\|_{p(\cdot)}\). The authors study estimates of \(s\)-numbers for the compact embedding \[ id: \overset{\circ}{W}{}^{1,p(\cdot)}(\Omega) \hookrightarrow L^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega) \] (which holds for bounded \(\log\)-Hölder continuous exponents \(p\)), with \(\overset{\circ}{W}{}^{1,p(\cdot)}(\Omega)\) denoting the closure of \(C_0^\infty(\Omega)\) in \(W^{1,p(\cdot)}(\Omega)\). The main result of the paper shows that the rate of decay of the \(s\)-numbers of \(id\) remains the same when one considers function spaces with non-constant integrability (e.g., bounded and \(\log\)-Hölder continuous exponents). It is shown that \[ s_k(id) \approx k^{-\frac{1}{n}} \] where \(s_k(id)\) stands for the \(k\)th approximation, Bernstein, Gelfand or Kolmogorov numbers. This extends to the variable exponent setting classical estimates well known for constant exponents.