The best constant for the Sobolev trace embedding from \(W^{1,1}(\Omega)\) into \(L^1(\partial\Omega)\) (Q1765208)

Consider the trace inequality for the embedding: \[ \lambda \| u\| _{L^p(\partial\Omega)}\leq \| u\| _{W^{1,p}(\Omega)}, \] where \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain with the Lipshitz continuous boundary and let \(\lambda_p(\Omega)\) be the best constant in the above inequality. In particular \[ \lambda_p(\Omega)=\text{inf}\{ \int_{\Omega}| u| ^p +\int_{\Omega}| \nabla u| ^p : u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega), \int_{\partial\Omega}| u| ^p=1 \} . \] It is known that for \(p>1\) the extremals for the above problem exist and solve the PDE: \(\Delta_p u=| u| ^{p-2}u\) involving the \(p\)-Laplacian, with the nonlinear boundary conditions of Neuman type. The authors prove that \(\lambda_p(\Omega)\rightarrow \lambda_1(\Omega)\) when \(p\to 1\). Moreover, under an additional assumption made on \(\Omega\) the extremal for the above problem with \(p=1\) exists in the space \(BV\) and is the solution to the Neuman problem \(\Delta_1 u=u/| u| \) involving the \(1\)--Laplacian. The results are illustrated by many interesting examples.