Regularity of quasi-minimizers of integral functionals with discontinuous \(p(x)\)-growth conditions (Q2500662)

The authors consider the integral functional \[ J(u,\Omega)= \int_\Omega f(x,u,Du)\,dx, \] where \(\Omega\) is an open subset of \(\mathbb{R}^d\), \(f: \Omega\times\mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}^d\to\mathbb{R}\) satisfies \(p(x)\)-growth conditions \[ a_1|\xi|^{p(x)}- b_1|u|^{r(x)}\leq f(x,u,\xi)\leq a_2|\xi|^{p(x)}+ b_1|u|^{r(x)}+ b_2, \] with \(p,r\in L^\infty_+(\Omega):= \{w\in L^\infty(\Omega)\mid\text{ess\,inf}_\Omega\, w(x)\geq 1\}\) and \(a_i\), \(b_i\) are positive constants. The goal of the paper is to study the local boundedness and the higher integrability of the gradient of the local quasi-minimizers of \(J\) when \(p(x)\) is discontinuous.