Variable exponent Bochner-Lebesgue spaces with symmetric gradient structure (Q2041751)

The authors consider an initial-boundary value problem driven by a nonlinear monotone operator, depending on the symmetric part of the gradient, having variable exponent growth with a lower order term and suitable data. To study the existence of solutions for the problem, the authors introduce a functional framework built upon variable \(\log\)-Hölder continuous exponents that substitutes classical Bochner-Lebesgue spaces. The main difficulty in this framework is that a Korn's-type inequality is not available. Therefore, by means of a point-wise Poincaré inequality near the boundary of a bounded Lipschitz domain, the authors construct a smoothing operator with suitable properties. This contribution allows them to get some basic tools such as density results and an integration-by-parts formula with respect to time. The main existence result is stated in Theorem~7.16, it is proved by using the theory of maximal monotone operators. This paper is of great interest.