Nonoccurrence of the Lavrentiev phenomenon for nonconvex variational problems (Q2575849)

The paper is concerned with the study of the nonoccurrence of the Lavrentiev phenomenon for two classes of nonconvex variational problems for integral functionals of the type \[ I(u)=\int_a^b f(t,v(t),v'(t))\,dt, \] where \(v\) is a Banach-valued function satisfying given boundary conditions in \(a\) and \(b\). More precisely, if \((X,\| \cdot\| )\) is a Banach space, if \(W^{1,1}(a,b;X)\) is the set of all the functions \(x: [a,b]\to X\) for which there exists a Bochner integrable \(x': [a,b]\to X\) such that \(x(t)=x(a)+\int_a^t x'(s)\,ds\) for every \(t\in[a,b]\), if \(f\) satisfies suitable coerciveness and continuity assumptions, and if \(z_1\), \(z_2\in X\), it is first proved that the infima \[ \inf\{I(v) : v\in W^{1,1}(a,b;X),\;v(a)=z_1,\;v(b)=z_2\} \] and \[ \inf\{I(v) : v\in W^{1,1}(a,b;X),\;\| v'(\cdot)\| \in L^\infty([a,b]),\;v(a)=z_1,\;v(b)=z_2\} \] are equal. The second main result of the paper proves that, again under coerciveness and continuity assumptions on \(f\), for every \(M>0\) there exists \(K>0\) such that for each \(z_1\), \(z_2\in X\) with \(\| z_1\| \), \(\| z_2\| \leq M\) and each \(x\in W^{1,1}(a,b;X)\) with \(v(a)=z_1\), \(v(b)=z_2\), and meas\(\{t\in[a,b] : \| x'(t)>K\}>0\) there exists \(y\) in the same space and satisfying the same boundary conditions such that \(I(y)<I(x)\) and \(\| y'(t)\| \leq K\) for almost every \(t\in[a,b]\). From these results some corollaries in significant cases are also deduced.