Partial regularity results for non-autonomous functionals with \(\varPhi \)-growth conditions (Q1681833)

The paper deals with the partial Hölder continuity of the local minimizers of non-autonomous integral functionals of the form \[ \int_{\Omega} \Phi \left( (A^{\alpha,\beta}_{i j}(u,u)D_i u^{\alpha}D_j u^{\beta})^{\frac{1}{2}}\right)\,dx \] where \(\Phi\) is an Orlicz function satisfying both the \(\triangle_2\) and \(\triangledown_2\) conditions and the function \(A(x, s) =\left( A _{i j}^{\alpha,\beta} (x, s\right)\) is uniformly elliptic, bounded and continuous. By assuming that the function \(A(x, s)\) is Hölder continuous, the authors prove the partial Hölder continuity also of the gradient of the local minimizers. The proof relies on suitable comparison arguments, precisely the authors compare in small balls the minimizer \(u\) of our functional with the minimizer \(v\) of a suitable \textit{frozen} and prove that \(u\) and \(v\) are close in an integral sense. The difficulties here are related with the \(\Phi\)-growth of the functional. Finally, the regularity follows by the characterization of the Hölder continuous function due to Campanato.