Lower semicontinuity and integral representation of functionals in \(BV([a,b];\mathbb{R}^ m)\) (Q1343981)

The authors take into consideration the integral of the calculus of variations \[ I(u)= \int^ b_ a f(t, u(t), u'(t)) dt,\qquad n\in W^{1, 1}(a, b; {\mathcal R}^ m) \] and introduce the following extension of \(I\) to \(BV([a, b]; {\mathcal R}^ m)\), \[ J(u)= I(u)+ \int_{[a, b]} f_ \infty\Biggl(t, u, {d\mu_ s\over d|\mu_ s|}\Biggr) d| \mu_ s|+ \inf_{\xi\in \Pi} \sum_{t\in S} \int^ 1_ 0 f_ \infty(t, \xi_ t(\tau),\xi_ t'(\tau)) d\tau, \] where \(f_ \infty\) is the recession function of \(f(t, u, \cdot)\), \(\mu_ s\) is the non-atomic singular part (with respect to Lebesgue measure) of the measure \(Du\), \(S= \{t\in [a, b]: n(t^ -)\neq u(t^ +)\}\) is the set of the jumps of \(u\) and \(\Pi\) is the following family of parametrizations of jumps: \[ \Pi= \Biggl\{(\xi_ t)_{t\in S}: \xi_ t\in W^{1, 1}(0, 1; {\mathcal R}^ m), \xi_ t(0)= u(t^ -), \xi_ t(1)= u(t^ +), \sum_{t\in S} \int^ 1_ 0 |\xi_ t'| d\tau<+ \infty\Biggr\}. \] The main theorem is a lower-semicontinuity result for \(J\) with respect to \(w^*\)- topology under the assumptions: \(f\) lower semicontinuous and non- negative, \(f(t, u,\cdot)\) convex, \(f(t, u, 0)\) bounded and \[ c| v|\leq f(t, u, v).\tag{1} \] In the scalar case, i.e., \(m= 1\), assumption (1) can be omitted. The method they adopt is based on a closure property of the parametrization family. Moreover, they prove that, under the further assumption \[ f(t, u, v)\leq C(u)(1+ | v|), \] \(J\) coincides with the \(w^*\)-relaxed functional of \(I\), i.e., \(J(u)= \inf_{(u_ n)_ n}\liminf_{n\to +\infty}I(u_ n)\), where the greatest lower bound is computed with respect to all the sequences \((u_ n)_ n\) in \(W^{1, 1}(a, b; {\mathcal R}^ m)\) which \(w^*\)-converge to \(u\). This result improves already known representation theorems given by other authors (see the enclosed list of references).