Morse theory and Hilbert's 19th problem (Q2326337)

This paper is concerned with Hilbert's 19th problem, and Morse theoretic techniques are applied to prove a regularity result ``up to the boundary'' for the system case of elliptic variational problems at the first time. Precisely, the authors consider the functional \[J(u)=\int_\Omega F(x,Du(x))dx\] for all \(u\), \(u|_{\partial\Omega}=\varphi\), \(u\in \varphi + w_0^{1,2}(\Omega,\, R^N)\), and \(F\) satisfies some assumptions. They conclude the nearly optimal result that \(J\) has a unique minimum which is Hölder continuous up to the boundary for all Hölder exponents in \((0,1)\).