Partial regularity of solutions to \(p(x)\)-Laplacian PDEs with discontinuous coefficients (Q2297264)

This paper deals with the partial regularity of weak solutions \(u\) in bounded and open \(\Omega\) of the \(p(x)\)-Laplacian PDE system of the form \[\nabla \left( a(x)|Du|^{p(x)-2} Du\right) = 0, \quad x \in \Omega .\] The principal novelty of this work is that the coefficient function \(a(x)\) is not assumed to be continuous and \(a \in W^{1,q} ( \Omega) \cap L^{\infty} ( \Omega)\). More precisely, for each \( 0<\alpha<1\) the authors prove that there exists an open set \(\Omega_0 \subset \Omega\) such that \( u \in C^{0,\alpha}_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega_{0})\), where \(\Omega_0\) is of full measure in the sense that \(|\Omega-\Omega_0|=0\). It is interesting to note that the authors study the problem with variational methods and then the results apply to the more general question of the regularity of the integral functional.