A geometric maximum principle for variational problems in spaces of vector-valued functions of bounded variation (Q476662)

Let \(\Omega\) be a bounded Lipschitz domain in \( \mathbb {R}^{n}\), \(n,\, M\in\mathbf{Z_{+}}\), N the exterior normal of \(\partial\Omega\), \(H^{n-1}\) the \((n-1)\)-Hausdorff measure on \(\partial\Omega\), K a closed convex set in \( \mathbb {R}^{M}\), \(u_{0}\in W^{1,1}(\Omega, \mathbb {R}^{M})\). {Theorem 1.} Let \(h: [0, +\infty [\, \rightarrow [0, +\infty[\) be a strictly increasing and convex function, \(\displaystyle c=\underset{t \rightarrow +\infty} {\lim} \frac{h(t)}{t}\in\,]0,+\infty[\) and \(\displaystyle J: BV(\Omega, \mathbb {R}^{M})\rightarrow \mathbb {R}\) given by \[ J(v) =\int_{\Omega}h(|\nabla^{a}v|)dx + c|\nabla^{s}v|(\Omega) + \int_{\partial\Omega}c|(u_{0}-v) \otimes \mathcal{N}|dH^{n-1}, \] where \(\nabla^{a}(v)\in L^{1}(\Omega, \mathbb {R}^{nM})\) and \(\nabla^{s}(v)\) are the Lebesgue decomposition of the measure \(\nabla v\), \(u_{0}(x)\in K\) for a.e. \(x \in\Omega\) and \(u \in BV(\Omega, \mathbb {R}^{M})\) such that \(J(u) = \underset{BV(\Omega, \mathbb {R}^{M})} {\inf}J\). Then \(u(x)\in K\) for a.e. \(x\in\Omega\). In the case \(M=1\) the authors prove: {Theorem 2.} Let \(F: \mathbb {R}^{n}\rightarrow[0,+\infty[\) be a strictly convex function such that \[ F(0)=0, \; F(-\xi)=F(\xi), \; a|\xi|+b\leq F(\xi)\leq A|\xi|+B, \] where \[ a,\, A > 0, \; b,\, B \in \mathbf {R},\; F_{\infty}(\xi)=\underset{t\rightarrow+\infty} {\lim}\frac{F(t\xi)}{t} \] for all \(\xi\in \mathbb {R}^{n}\), \(L: BV(\Omega, \mathbb {R})\rightarrow \mathbb {R}\) given by \[ L(v) = \int_{\Omega}F(\nabla^{a}v)dx + \int_{\Omega}F_{\infty}(\frac{\nabla^{s}v}{|\nabla^{s}v|})d|\nabla^{s}v| + \int_{\partial\Omega}F_{\infty}((u_{0}-v)\cdot N)dH^{n-1}, \] where \((\frac{\nabla^{s}v}{|\nabla^{s}v|},|\nabla^{s}v|)\) denotes the polar decomposition of \(\nabla^{s}v\), \(u \in BV(\Omega, \mathbb {R})\) such that \(L(u) = \underset{BV(\Omega, \mathbb {R})} {\inf} L\). Then \(\underset{\Omega} {\inf} \; u_{0}\leq u(x)\leq\underset{\Omega} {\sup} \; u_{0}\) for a.e. \(x \in\Omega\).