Extension of a result by Lindquist to Lebesgue spaces with variable exponents (Q2342722)

The paper begins with a succinct survey of the first-order Sobolev spaces \(W^{1,p(x)}\) with variable exponent \(p(x)\). The main result deals with the stability of a nonlinear eigenvalue problem with variable exponent. The optimal constant in the Sobolev inequality \[ \| u\|_{p(x),\Omega}\leq C\|\nabla u\|_{p(x),\Omega},\quad u\in W^{1,p(x)}_0(\Omega), \] where the Luxemburg-Zaanen norm is involved, leads to this kind of eigenvalue problems. If the exponent \(p(x)\) happens to be constant, the problem reduces to the minimization of the Rayleigh quotient \[ {\int_\Omega |\nabla u|^p dx\over\int_\Omega |u|^pdx} \] among all \(u\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\), \(u\not\equiv 0\). In this case, the Euler-Lagrange equation is \[ \text{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)+ \lambda|u|^{p-2} u= 0. \] The case of a variable exponent is more delicate and the Euler-Lagrange equation is a nonlocal one, see \textit{G. Frangina} and \textit{P. Lindqvist} [Nonlinear Anal., Theory Methods Appl., Ser. A, Theory Methods 85, 1--16 (2013; Zbl 1278.35169)]. The authors study the stability of the problem as \(p_k(x)\searrow p_0(x)\).