Attainment of minima and implicit partial differential equations (Q1809073)

The problem is \[ \text{minimize} \;\int_\Omega f(Du(x)) dx \qquad \text{subject to} \;u \in u_0 + W_0^{1, \infty}(\Omega), \] where \(u_0 \in C^2(\overline \Omega)\) functions as a boundary datum. One of the results is that the minimum is actually attained if \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n\) \((n \geq 2)\) is a bounded uniformly convex domain and \(f\) is a lower semicontinuous function such that (among other assumptions) the convex envelope \(f^{**}\) is affine on each connected component of the set where \(f(\xi) > f^{**}(\xi).\) There are other attainment results, both in the scalar and in the vector valued case, a well as counterexamples that show that some of the hypotheses cannot be discarded or weakened. For instance, the absence of \(u(x)\) in the integrand precludes Bolza's counterexample \(\Omega = (0, 1),\) \(f(u(x), u'(x)) = (u'(x)^2 - 1)^2 + u(x)^2,\) and ``affine'' cannot be replaced by ``piecewise affine.'' Parts of the treatment depend on existence results for boundary values for first order implicit differential equations \[ F(x, u(x), Du(x)) = 0 \] strongly nonlinear in the derivatives, as well as on second order equations of the same type. The paper includes complete proofs, and the authors refer to a forthcoming monograph for more results, details and references.