On an elliptic equation arising from composite materials (Q303702)

In the paper, the authors derive an interior Schauder estimate for solutions to a class of divergence form uniform elliptic equations with discontinuous coefficients and inhomogeneities in \(\mathbb{R}^2\). More precisely, let \(u\) be a weak solution to the uniformly elliptic divergence form equation \[ D_i(a(x)D_j u)= D_if_i \text{ in } \mathcal{D} \] where \(\mathcal{D}\) is a bounded open subset in \(\mathbb{R}^2\), \(a(x), f_i(x)\) are piecewise Hölder continuous in \(\mathcal{D}\) with two touching balls as subdomains, that is, for some \(k\geq 0\) and \(\gamma\in (0,1)\), \[ a(x), f_i(x)\in C^{k,\gamma}(\overline{\mathcal{D}_m}),\;m=1,2,3, \] where \( \mathcal{D}_1=B_{r_1}(0,r_1), \mathcal{D}_2=B_{r_2}(0,-r_2)\) are subdomains of \(\mathcal{D}\), and \(\mathcal{D}_3:=\mathcal{D}\setminus (\mathcal{D}_1\cup \mathcal{D}_2)\). Then, \(u\in C^{k+1,\gamma}(\mathcal{D}_\epsilon\cap \overline{\mathcal{D}_m})\), where \(\mathcal{D}_\epsilon=\{x\in \mathcal{D}:\text{dist}(x,\partial\mathcal{D})\geq \epsilon\}\). In particular, when \(f_i\equiv 0\) and \(a(x)\) is piecewise constant, then \(u\) is piecewise smooth with bounded derivatives. This completely answers in dimension two a question raised by \textit{Y. Y. Li} and \textit{M. Vogelius} [ibid. 153, No. 2, 91--151 (2000; Zbl 0958.35060)].