Cauchy fluxes and Gauss-Green formulas for divergence-measure fields over general open sets (Q1741804)

This intensive work starts with an interesting introduction to the topic, in which the authors frame the subject of Gauss-Green formulas for \(\mathcal{DM}^p\)-fields, and previously add a little review on the classical Gauss-Green formula. Due to the density of notation, concepts and results established in the paper, for the convenience of the reader we reproduce the well-organized structure of contents, as appearing in the last part of Section 1: ``In Section 2, some basic notions and facts on the \(BV\) theory and \(\mathcal{DM}^p\)-fields are recalled. In Section 3, we establish some product rules between \(\mathcal{DM }^p\)-fields and suitable scalar functions, including continuous bounded scalar, functions with gradient in \(L^{p'}\) for any \(1\leq p\leq \infty\), which has not been stated explicitly in the literature to the best of our knowledge. In Section 4, we investigate the distributional definition of the normal trace functional and its relation with the product rule between \(\mathcal{DM}^p\)-fields and characteristics functions of Borel measurable sets. We also provide necessary an sufficient conditions under which the normal trace of a \(\mathcal{DM}^p\)-field can be represented by a Radon measure. In Section 5, we describe the properties of the level sets of the signed distance function from a closed set and their applications in the proof of the Gauss-Green formulas for general open sets. As a byproduct, we obtain generalized Green's identities and other sufficient conditions under which the normal trace of a divergence-measure field can be represented by a Radon measure on the boundary of an open set in Sections 5--6. In Section 7, we show the existence of interior and exterior smooth approximations for \(U\) and \(\overline{U}\) respectively, where \(U\) is a general open set, together with their corresponding Gauss-Green formulas. In the case of \(C^0\) domains \(U\), we employ the results of Ball-Zarnescu [\textit{J. M. Ball} and \textit{A. Zarnescu}, Calc. Var. Partial Differ. Equ. 56, No. 1, Paper No. 13, 32 p. (2017; Zbl 1370.41030)] to find smooth interior and exterior approximations of \(U\) and \(\overline{U}\) in an explicit way. Indeed, we are able to write the interior and exterior normal traces as the limits of the classical normal traces on the superlevel sets of a regularized distance introduced in [loc. cit.] and in [\textit{G. M. Lieberman}, Pac. J. Math. 117, 329--352 (1985; Zbl 0535.35028)]. In Section 8, we employ Ball-Zarnescu's theorem ([loc. cit.], Theorem 5.1) to show that any Lipschitz domain \(U\) is actually Lipschitz deformable in the sense of Chen-Frid. In addition, we recall the previous approximation theory for open sets with Lipschitz boundary developed by \textit{J. Nečas} [Czech. Math. J. 12(87), 274--287 (1962; Zbl 0106.27001); ibid. 14(89), 125--145 (1964; Zbl 0131.09701)] and \textit{G. Verchota} [J. Funct. Anal. 59, 572--611 (1984; Zbl 0589.31005); Acta Math. 194, No. 2, 217--279 (2005; Zbl 1216.35021)] to give a more explicit representation of a particular bi-Lipschitz deformation \(\Psi(x,t)\), which is also regular in the sense that \(\lim_{t\rightarrow 0^+}J^{\partial U}\Psi_t=1\) in \(L^1(\partial U; \mathcal{H}^{n-1})\), where \(\Psi_t(x)=\Psi(x,t)\), and \(J^{\partial U}\) denotes the tangential Jacobian. Finally, in Section 9, based on the theory of normal traces for \(\mathcal{DM}^p\)-fields obtained as the limit of classical normal traces on smooth approximations or deformations, we introduce the notion of Cauchy fluxes as functionals defined on the boundaries of general bounded open sets for the rigorous mathematical formulation of the physical principle of balance law involving discontinuities and singularities, and show that the Cauchy fluxes can be represented by corresponding divergence-measure fields.''