Partial regularity for nonlinear elliptic systems with continuous growth exponent (Q1954226)

The purpose of the paper is to show partial Hölder continuity for solutions \(u\in W^{1,p(\cdot ) }_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega ,{\mathbb R}^N)\) \((N>1)\) of nonlinear elliptic systems in divergence form \[ -\mathrm{div } a(x,u(x) ,Du(x))=0 \tag{1} \] on an open domain \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb R}^n\), \(n\geq 2\) and the vector field \(a:\Omega \times {\mathbb R}^N \times {\mathbb R}^{nN}\) is assumed to fulfill the structure conditions of nonstandard \(p(x)\) growth with a growth exponent \(p(x)\) that is logarithmic Hölder continuous, in the sense that \[ | p(x) - p(y)| \leq -\frac{1}{\log | x-y | }, \] for any \( x,y\in \Omega \) with \( | x -y | \leq \frac12\). Hypotheses are the following. Let \(0<\nu < L\) be fixed constants. \[ \nu (1+| \zeta | )^{p(x)-2} | \lambda | ^2 \leq \langle D_{\zeta } a(x,\xi ,\zeta )\lambda ,\lambda \rangle , | D_{\zeta } a(x,\xi ,\zeta )\leq L(1+| \zeta | )^{p(x)-2}, \tag{\(\mathrm{H}_1\)} \] for all \(x\in \Omega ,\xi \in {\mathbb R}^N, \zeta, \lambda \in {\mathbb R}^{nN}\). \[ \begin{cases}| a(x,\xi ,\zeta )-a(x_0,\xi ,\zeta ) | \\ \leq L\omega (| x -x_0| ) [(1+| \zeta | )^{p(x)-1} + (1+| \zeta | )^{p(x_0)-1}](1+ \log (1+ | \zeta | )), \end{cases} \tag{\(\mathrm{H}_2\)} \] for all \(x,x_0\in \Omega ,\xi \in {\mathbb R}^N, \zeta \in {\mathbb R}^{nN}\) and furthermore, \[ | a(x,\xi ,\zeta )-a(x,\xi _0,\zeta ) | \leq L\widehat\omega (| \xi -\xi _0| ) (1+| \zeta | )^{p(x)-1} , \tag{\(\mathrm{H}_3\)} \] for all \(x \in \Omega ,\xi ,\xi _0 \in {\mathbb R}^N, \zeta \in {\mathbb R}^{nN}\). Finally, for any \(x\in \Omega \) with \(p(x)\geq 2\), \[ | D_{\zeta } a(x,\xi ,\zeta _2)-D_{\zeta }a( x,\xi , \zeta _1) | \leq L\mu \left( \frac{| \zeta _2-\zeta _1| }{1+| \zeta _1| + | \zeta _2| }\right)(1+ | \zeta _1| + | \zeta _2 | )^{p(x)-2} , \tag{\(\mathrm{H}_{4_a}\)} \] for all \(\xi \in {\mathbb R}^N, \zeta _1,\zeta _2 \in {\mathbb R}^{nN}\), whereas for any \(x\in \Omega \) with \(1<p(x)<2\), \[ \begin{cases} | D_{\zeta } a(x,\xi ,\zeta _2)-D_{\zeta }a( x,\xi , \zeta _1) | \\ \leq L\mu \left( \frac{| \zeta _2-\zeta _1| }{1+| \zeta _1| + | \zeta _2| }\right)\left(\frac{1+ | \zeta _1| + | \zeta _2 | }{(1+| \zeta _1| )(1+| \zeta _2 | )} \right)^{2-p(x)} ,\end{cases} \tag{\(H_{\mathrm{4}_b}\)} \] for all \(\xi \in {\mathbb R}^N, \zeta _1,\zeta _2 \in {\mathbb R}^{nN}\) where \(\omega , \widetilde{\omega }, \mu \) denote three moduli of continuity. Then the author gets the following theorem. Theorem. Let \(u \in W^{1,p(\cdot )}_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega ,{\mathbb R}^N)\) be a weak solution of the system (1) under the structure condition \((H_1) - (H_{4_b})\) where the modulus of continuity \(\omega \) for the exponent function \(p\) and the \(x\)-dependence of the coefficient \(a\) satisfies that \[ \limsup _{\rho \downarrow 0} \omega (\rho ) \log \left(\frac{1}{\rho }\right)=0. \] Then, there exists an open set \(\Omega _0\subset \Omega \) with the Lebesgue measure \(| \Omega \setminus \Omega _0| =0\) such that \(u \in C^{0,\alpha }(\Omega _0,{\mathbb R}^N)\) for any \(\alpha \in (0,1)\), and \[ \Omega \setminus \Omega _0\subset \Omega _1 \cup \Omega _2, \] with \[ \Omega _1= \{ x_0 \in \Omega ; \limsup _{\rho \downarrow 0} \frac{1}{| B_{\rho }(x_0)| } \int _{B_{\rho }(x_0)} | Du -(Du)_{x_0,\rho }| dx >0\}, \] and \[ \Omega _2= \{ x_0 \in \Omega ; \limsup _{\rho \downarrow 0} (| Du | ^{p(\cdot )})_{x_0,\rho }= \infty \}. \]