Supremal representation of \(L^\infty\) functionals (Q2493282)

The paper provides sufficient conditions on an abstract functional \(F\), depending on an open set and a Lipschitz continuous function, under which \(F\) has a supremal form. Indeed, if \(F\) is as above and satisfies some locality, countable supremality, strong continuity, weak*-lower semicontinuity, and coerciveness type conditions, then there exists a Carathéodory function \(f\) such that \[ F(u,A)=\text{ ess}\;\sup_{\hskip-20pt x\in A}f(x,u(x),Du(x)) \] for any Lipschitz function \(u\) and any open set \(A\). All the above conditions are classical in representation problems in the calculus of variations except the countable supremality one, that reads as \[ F\left(u,\cup_{i=1}^\infty A_i\right)=\vee_{i=1}^\infty F(u,A_i) \] for every sequence \(\{A_i\}\) and every Lipschitz \(u\). The analysis of supremal functionals is somewhat different from the one of integral ones. Indeed, in the supremal case, \(F\) is not uniquely defined by its values on smooth functions, as an example discussed in the paper shows.