Implicit partial differential equations

Authors Bernard Dacorogna, Paolo Marcellini

Publication date 27 October 1999

Published in Progress in Nonlinear Differential Equations and Their Applications (Search for Journal in Brave)

Baire's category arguments complex eikonal equation nonlinear elasticity optimal design phase transitions quasiconvexity

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Ordinary differential inclusions (34A60) Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to partial differential equations (35-02) Boundary value problems for nonlinear first-order PDEs (35F30) Boundary value problems for nonlinear higher-order PDEs (35G30) PDEs with multivalued right-hand sides (35R70) Methods involving semicontinuity and convergence; relaxation (49J45) Viscosity solutions to Hamilton-Jacobi equations in optimal control and differential games (49L25) Analysis of microstructure in solids (74N15)

Review text

The nonlinear partial differential equations (PDEs) become a highly active field in the second half of 20th century. In the book, the authors present a new class of such equations, called implicit PDEs. Typical example is the system of equations \(F_i(x,u(x)\), \(\nabla u(x))=0\) a.e. on a (possibly unbounded) domain \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^n\) for \(u:\Omega\to \mathbb{R}^m\) satisfying the prescribed Dirichlet condition \(u=\varphi\) on the boundary \(\partial\Omega\) and \(i=1, \dots, I\). A new functional analytic method for such implicit PDEs, based on Baire's category arguments and on the weak lower semicontinuity of the integral functionals \(u\mapsto\int_\Omega F_i(x,u(x)\), \(\nabla u(x))dx\) with \(F(x,u,\cdot)\) (quasi)convex, is presented to get existence of almost everywhere solutions under assumptions about a coercivity of \(F\) and a compatibility of \(\varphi\). Uniqueness cannot be expected because, just conversely, the set of such solutions is shown typically even dense in \(W^{1,\infty}(\Omega;\mathbb{R}^m)\). Comparison with alternative methods, as viscosity solutions (Chapter 4) or Gromov's convex integration, is provided, too. This subject differs essentially from standard PDEs, as e.g. the classical quasilinear equations, which are in principle excluded from considerations presented in the book. After a thorough introduction (Chapter 1), first only one scalar equation is studied (Chapter 2), i.e. \(I=m=1\). Later (Chapter 6) it is generalized for the vectorial case and for systems of implicit PDEs, i.e. \(m>1\) and \(I>1\), introducing various weakened modes of convexity (Chapter 5) as poly-, rank-one and quasi-convexity. Moreover, the Dirichlet-Neumann boundary value problem for 2nd-order implicit PDEs of the general form \(F(x,u(x)\), \(\nabla u,\nabla^2u)=0\) are also studied (Chapter 3). Topics of the book have important applications in variational calculus, nonlinear elasticity, phase transitions, and optimal design. In particular, Part IV (Chapters 7-9) includes the singular value case, the case of potential wells, and the complex eikonal equation. A lot of background material, as viscosity solutions, quasiconvexity and related topics, piecewise polynomial approximation in Sobolev spaces, convex integration, or nonclassical Vitali-type covering theorems, is presented in the book, which makes it essentially self-contained. Most of the results are original from the authors, some results are published even first time. This makes the book a unique introduction to this new topic, and will be found useful by experts in nonlinear analysis in general and PDEs in particular, as well as by advanced graduate students in this field.

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