Local boundedness of quasi-minimizers of fully anisotropic scalar variational problems (Q2313935)

Consider the integral functional (IF) \(F(u;\Omega)=\int_\Omega f(x,u(x),\nabla u(x))dx\) where \(\Omega\) is an open bounded subset of \(R^N\), \(N\ge 2\), and \(f:\Omega\times R\times R^N\to R\) is a Carathéodory function. Assume the following growth conditions (for some \(L\ge 0\), \(\beta> 0\)) (C1) \(\sum_{i=1}^N\Phi(|\xi_i|)\le f(x,s,\xi)\le L({\widetilde B}^\beta(|\xi|)+1)\), for a.e. \(x\in \Omega\) and every \(s\in R\), \(\xi=(\xi_1,\dots,\xi_N)\in R^N\), where (for each \(i\)) \(\Phi_i\) is a function in the class \(\nabla_2^{r_i}\cap \nabla_2^{m_i}\) (with \(1\le r_i\le m_i< N\)) and \({\widetilde B}(|\xi|)\) is a certain \(N\) function related to \((\Phi_1,\dots,\Phi_N)\), with (C2) \(M/{\overline r}^*< \beta< 1\), where \(M\), \({\overline r}^*\) depend on the above constants. In addition, assume that (C3) \(f(x,\cdot,\cdot)=f^{**}(x,\cdot,\cdot)\) in \((R\times B_s(0))^c\), where \(f^{**}\) denotes the convex envelope of \(f\) with respect to \((u,\xi)\). The following is the main result in this paper. Theorem. Let \(u\in W_{\mathrm{loc}}^{1,(\Phi_1,\dots,\Phi_N)}(\Omega)\) be a quasi-minimizer of the functional (IF). Then, under (C1), (C2) and (C3), (i) \(u\in DG_{\Phi_1,\dots,\Phi_N,\beta}(\Omega)\), (ii) \(u\in L_{\mathrm{loc}}^\infty (\Omega)\), (iii) for each compact \(\Sigma\) of \(\Omega\), \(\mathrm{ess}\)-\(\mathrm{sup}_\Sigma(|u|)\le G(K(C \int_\Omega {\widetilde B}^\beta(|u|+1)dx)^\Lambda)\), where \(G\) is the inverse function of \({\widetilde B}^\beta\) and \(K\), \(C\), \(\Lambda\) are positive numbers depending on the above parameters. Further aspects occasioned by these developments are also discussed.