Some generalized Poincaré inequalities and applications to problems arising in electromagnetism (Q1970037)

It is well known that for a sufficiently regular domain \(\Omega \subseteq R^{3}\), the following two Poincaré theorems hold true: There is a positive constant \(c\) such that \[ \|v\|_{H^{1}(\Omega)}\leq c\|\nabla \times v\|_{L^{2}(\Omega)},\;\;v\in H^{1}(\Omega),\;\;\nabla \cdot v=0, \] where in the first case \(v\times n|_{\partial \Omega }=0\), and in the second case \(v\cdot n|_{\partial \Omega }=0\). In these theorems, the vanishing of at least one component of the field \(v\) on the boundary is required [see, for instance, \textit{O. A. Ladyzhenskaya} and \textit{V. A. Solonnikov}, J. Sov. Math. 8, 384-422 (1977); English translation from Zap. Naučn. Semin. Leningr. Otd. Mat. Inst. Steklov 38, 46-93 (Russian) (1973; Zbl 0348.35080)]. In the paper, these results are generalized to the case of general boundary conditions, by means of the orthogonal Hodge decompositions for the spaces \(L^{2}(\Omega)\). In the sequel, some applications of the previous results to problems arising in the electromagnetic theory are presented. The existence, uniqueness and stability theorems are proved for weak solutions of the Maxwell's type equations (see for some related results \textit{M. Fabrizio} and \textit{A. Morro} [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 136, No. 4, 359-381 (1996; Zbl 0874.35118)], and \textit{R. Nibbi} [Rend. Circ. Mat. Palermo, II. Ser. 45, No. 2, 303-322 (1996; Zbl 0886.35152)]).