A singular minimizer of a smooth strongly convex functional in three dimensions (Q1567049)

The authors give an example of a non-smooth function \(u:\Omega:= \{x\in \mathbb{R}^3:|x|< 1\}\to \mathbb{R}^5\) of Sobolev class \(W^{1,2}(\Omega, \mathbb{R}^5)\) which minimizes a variational integral of type \(I(u)= \int_\Omega f(Du) dx\) where \(f\) is a smooth strongly convex function with uniformly bounded second derivatives. Starting from the ``counterexample'' \(u_{ij}= {x_ix_j\over|x|}-{|x|\over 3} \delta_{ij}\), \(i,j= 1,2,3\), given by \textit{W. Hao}, \textit{S. Leonardi} and \textit{J. Necǎs} [Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa, Cl. Sci., IV. Ser. 23, No. 1, 57-67 (1996; Zbl 0864.35031)] the main idea of their construction is to find a null-Lagrangian \(L\) such that \(\nabla L(X)=\nabla f(X)\) for \(X\in \text{Im}(\nabla u)\) where \(f\) denotes a function with the properties as stated above.