A gamma convergence approach to the critical Sobolev embedding in variable exponent spaces (Q281868)

This paper is devoted to the study of variable exponent Sobolev embeddings \( W^{1,p(\cdot)} (\Omega) \hookrightarrow L^{q(\cdot)} (\Omega)\) on smooth bounded domains. The exponents \(p,q\) are assumed to satisfy standard regularity assumptions, with \(p(x)\) taking (essential) values in \((1,n)\) and \(1\leq q(x) \leq p^\ast(x):= \frac{np(x)}{n-p(x)}\). It is also assumed that the set of points \(x\) such that \(q(x)\) equals the Sobolev exponent \(p^\ast(x)\) has positive measure. Due to the lack of compactness, one of the main motivations is the problem of existence of extremals for such embeddings, namely the existence of Sobolev functions \(u\) such that the infimum \(\,\inf\limits_{v} \frac{\|\nabla v\|_{p(\cdot)}}{\|v\|_{q(\cdot)}}\) (taken with respect to functions \(v\in W^{1,p(\cdot)}_0 (\Omega)\)) is attained. The authors show the existence of extremals for critical embeddings following an approximation scheme in terms of subcritical extremals in the sense of \(\Gamma\)-convergence. In particular, they are able to analyze the asymptotic behavior of those subcritical extremals, and to observe a concentration phenomenon.