An estimate for the minima of the functionals of the calculus of variations (Q2640126)

We consider a functional of the calculus of variations of the following form \[ (1.1)\quad J(w)=\int_{G}[f(x,Dw(x))-g(x,w(x))]dx, \] where i) G is a bounded open subset of \({\mathbb{R}}^ n\), ii) f: (x,z)\(\in G\times {\mathbb{R}}^ n\to {\mathbb{R}}\) is a Carathéodory function, iii) g: (x,s)\(\in G\times {\mathbb{R}}\to {\mathbb{R}}\) is measurable in x and differentiable in s. Let A: [0,\(+\infty)\to {\mathbb{R}}\) be a convex function such that \(\lim_{r\to 0}(A(r)/r)=0\) and consider a function \(u\geq 0\) which minimizes (1.1) in the Orlicz space \(W_ 0^{1,A}(G)\) (this definition is given in Section 2). Here, we prove an a priori estimate for u. Therefore, we are not concerned with the existence problem of minima, but assuming the existence of a minimum of (1.1) we seek a priori bounds for it.