Asymptotics of the solution of a variational problem on a large interval (Q2063649)

A problem that arises in modeling multiferroics is to minimize the energy functional \[ \mathcal E[\varphi]=\int_0^L \frac{1}{2} \varphi'(s)^2+\beta \varphi'(s)-\frac{1}{2}\sin^2 \varphi(s) ds \] over a finite interval of length \(L\), where \(\varphi\) is smooth and \(\beta>0\). When the length of the interval is large is usual to assume that \(L=+\infty\) but in that case \(\mathcal E\) is not well-defined. An approach taken in the literature to overcome this difficulty is to minimize the mean value of the energy \[ \langle \mathcal E[\varphi] \rangle=\frac{1}{T} \int_0^T \frac{1}{2} \varphi'(s)^2+\beta \varphi'(s)-\frac{1}{2}\sin^2 \varphi(s) ds \] among the periodic solutions \(\varphi\) of the Euler-Lagrange equation \[\varphi''(s)+\sin \varphi(s) \cos \varphi(s)=0, \qquad \qquad (1)\] where \(T\) is the period of \(\varphi\). Such problem is known to have a unique solution and the paper under review provides a justification for this approach by proving that when \(L<+\infty\) the solutions of (1) for \(s\in (0,L)\) that satisfy the boundary conditions \[\varphi'(0)=\varphi'(L)=-\beta\] and with the minimum value of the energy \(\mathcal E\) converge as \(L\to +\infty\) to the minimizer of \(\langle \mathcal E\rangle\).