Characterization of the \(\Gamma\)-limits of unilateral obstacles (Q1107094)

The author presents a characterization result for \(\Gamma\)-limits in a class of variational obstacle problems. Namely, the obstacle problems that are considered are of the form: \[ \min_{u\in H\quad 1(\Omega)}\{\| u\|^ 2_{H^ 1(\Omega)}+\Phi(u,A)\}, \] where \[ \Phi(u,A)=\begin{cases} 0 \quad&\text{ if }cap\{x\in A: \tilde u(x)<\phi(x)\}=0; \\ +\infty, &\text{ otherwise }\end{cases} \] with properly defined capacity of a set and \[ \tilde u(x)= \liminf_{r\to 0}m(B_ r)^{-1}\int_{B_ r(x)}u(y)dy. \] Observe that no regularity assumption concerning the obstacle \(\phi\) is needed. A nice final result is proved that a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a sequence \(\{\Psi_ h\}\) of obstacles such that \[ \| u\|^ 2_{H^ 1(\Omega)}+F(u,A)=\Gamma (L^ 2(\Omega)^-)\lim_{h\to \infty,w\to u}\{\| w\|^ 2_{H^ 1(\Omega)}+\Psi_ h(w,A)\} \] for every \(u\in H^ 2(\Omega)\) and a.a. A in the class of Borel and open subsets of \(\Omega\), is that there exist a positive Borel function f and positive Radon measures \(\mu\), \(\nu\) \((\mu \in H^{-1}(\Omega))\), f having some regularity properties such that we have \[ F(u,A)= \int_{A}f(x,\tilde u(x))d\mu +\nu (A). \]