Nonlocal variational principles with variable growth (Q2249970)

The paper is devoted to the study of the weak lower semicontinuity and relaxation of nonlocal variational problems. The functional \(J(u)=\int\limits_{\Omega\times\Omega} W(x,y,\nabla u(x),\nabla u(y))dxdy\), where \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^N\) is a regular open bounded set (\(N\geq 1\)) and \(W\) is a real-valued function with variable growth is considered. These problems with variable exponent growth possess very complicated nonlinearities; for instance, the \(p(x)\)-Laplacian operator is inhomogeneous. The authors analyze these problems in terms of Young measures (or parameterized measures) generated by sequences in variable exponent Sobolev spaces. The paper is organized as follows. In the introduction, a description of the problem is given. In Section 2 several important properties on variable exponent spaces are recalled; in Section 3 the authors give some conclusions for Young measures in variable exponent spaces; in Section 4 they analyze the weak lower semicontinuity and relaxation of \(J\).