\(\mathcal{A}\)-variational principles (Q6066109)

This paper deals with the proof of an existence result for the following minimization problem \[ \min \left\{\int_{\Omega} W(x,v(x))\, \mathrm{d} x|\, v\in L^p(\Omega, \mathbb R^n) \text{ such that }\mathcal Av=0\right\}, \] where \(\Omega\) is a given bounded open set with Lipschitz boundary, \(W:\Omega\times \mathbb R^{n}\to \mathbb R\) is a Carathéodory function, while \(\mathcal A\) is a constant-rank linear differential operator of the form \(\mathcal A v=\sum_iA_i\frac{\partial v}{\partial x_i}\). The existence of the solutions to the above problem is shown under the following conditions on \(\mathcal A\) and the density \(W\): \begin{itemize} \item [1.] \(W(x,\cdot)\) is \(\mathcal A\)-polyconvex, i.e. \(W(x,V)=\Psi(x,A(V))\) for a.e.\ \(x\in \Omega\), with \(\Psi(x,\cdot)\) convex and a family of weak continuous functions \(A:\mathbb R^m\to \mathbb R\) for \(\mathcal A\) (i.e.\ having a suitable continuity property for the weak \(L^p\)-convergence under the differential constraint \(\mathcal A v=0\)), satisfying \(|A(V)|\leq C|V|^r\), for \(C>0\) and \(r<p\). \item [2.] \(W\) satisfies the growth condition \(W(x,V)\geq a|V|^p+b\) for some \(p\geq 2\) , \(a>0\) and \(b\in \mathbb R\). \end{itemize} The above notion of \(\mathcal A\)-polyconvexity is investigated through several examples. The main example of the operator \(\mathcal A\) covered by this theory is that of \(\mathcal A=\mathrm{curl}\). Furthermore, the obtained existence result is applied to the study of \(\operatorname{div}-\mathrm{curl}\)-polyconvexity and the minimization problem above for the density functions of the form \[ W(v,\nabla u)=\frac{a|v|^p+b|\nabla u|^q}{(v\cdot \nabla u)^r}, \quad v\cdot \nabla u>0. \]