Remarks about separately convex functions (Q2366881)

The problem of the weak lower semicontinuity of an integral functional with separately convex integrand is investigated. The author goes in the direction indicated by Ball and Murat using compensated compactness due to Tartar and the notion of slicing measures of Evans and Fonseca. The main theorem of the paper states that in the case where the functions \(u^{(j)}: \Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^ 2\to \mathbb{R}^ 2\) \((j\in\mathbb{N})\) are uniformly bounded in \(L^ \infty(\Omega)\) and have a \(w\)-\(*\) limit \(u\) in \(L^ \infty(\Omega)\), if one of the sequences of partial derivatives \(\{{{\partial u_ 1^{(j)}} \over {\partial x_ 2}}\}\), \(\{ {{\partial u_ 2^{(j)}} \over {\partial x_ 1}}\}\), is bounded in \(L^ 2(\Omega)\) and the other is relatively compact in \(H^{-1}(\Omega)\) strong, then for a separately convex continuous function \(H\) we have \[ \int_ \Omega H(u)dx\leq \liminf_{j\to\infty} \int_ \Omega H(u^{(j)})dx. \] A generalization of the theorem to the case of \(\mathbb{R}^ N\)-valued functions of \(N\) variables is also given.