Higher integrability for minimizers of integral functionals with nonstandard growth (Q1336329)

The author discusses the regularity of the minimizers of integral functionals whose integrands have nonstandard growth. More precisely, he considers functionals of the type \[ I[u]= \int_ \Omega F(Du(x))dx, \] where \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^ n\), \(n\geq 2\), is a bounded open set, \(a: \Omega\to \mathbb{R}^ N\), \(N\geq 1\), and \[ a|\xi|^ p- b\leq F(\xi)\leq c|\xi|^ q+ d\quad\text{with }1< p\leq q. \] A minimizer for \(I[u]\) is a function \(u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega)\) whose partial derivative, with respect to \(x_ u\), \(D_ n u\in L^ q(\Omega)\) such that \[ I[u]\leq I[u+ \varphi] \] for every \(\varphi\in W^{1,p}_ 0(\Omega)\) with \(D_ n \varphi\in L^ q(\Omega)\). The main results assure that \(u\in W^{1,q}_{\text{loc}}(\Omega)\) or \(u\in W^{2,2}_{\text{loc}}(\Omega)\), but also stronger partial regularity results are proved.