Regularity of minimizers of relaxed problems for harmonic maps (Q1177893)

Let \(\Omega\) be a smooth bounded open subset of \({\mathbf R}^ 3\). We denote for every \(u\in H^ 1(\Omega; S^ 2)\) by \(D(u)\) the vector field \[ D(u)= (u\cdot u_ y\land u_ z, u\cdot u_ z\land u_ x, u\cdot u_ x\land u_ y) \] and for every \(u\in H^ 1_ \varphi(\Omega; S^ 2)\) by \(L(u)\) the functional \[ L(u)=\sup\left\{ \int_ \Omega D(u)\cdot \nabla w dx- \int_{\partial\Omega} w(\text{Jac }\varphi) dH^{n-1}: \|\nabla w\|_ \infty\leq 1\right\} \] being \(\varphi: \partial\Omega\to S^ 2\) a boundary datum. Finally, for every \(\lambda\in [0,1]\) and \(u\in H^ 1_ \varphi(\Omega; S^ 2)\) we set \[ F_ \lambda(u)= \textstyle{{1\over 2}} \int_ \Omega |\nabla u|^ 2 dx+ \lambda L(u) \] and consider the minimum problem \(\min\bigl\{ F_ \lambda(u): u\in H^ 1_ \varphi(\Omega; s^ 2)\bigr\}\). Since \(F_ \lambda\) is weakly lower semicontinuous, the minimum above is achieved and the minimizers are weak solutions of the harmonic maps equation \(-\Delta u= u|\nabla u|^ 2\) on \(\Omega\). The main result of the paper is that for every \(\lambda\in [0,1[\) the minimizers of \(F_ \lambda\) are smooth on \(\overline\Omega\) except at a finite number of points. The case \(\lambda= 1\), very important for the relations with relaxed energy [see the authors and \textit{J. M. Coron}, in: Variational methods, Proc. Conf., Paris/Fr. 1988, Prog. Nonlinear Differ. Equ. Appl. 4, 37-52 (1990)], still remains open.