Integral representation and \(\Gamma\)-convergence for free-discontinuity problems with \(p(\cdot)\)-growth (Q6137574)

The authors consider functionals \(\mathcal{F}:GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ; \mathbb{R}^{m})\times \mathcal{B}(\Omega)\rightarrow \lbrack 0,+\infty)\) satisfying: \(\mathcal{F}(u,\cdot)\) is a Borel measure for any \(u\in GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\), \(\mathcal{F}(\cdot ,A)\) is lower semicontinuous with respect to convergence in measure on \(\Omega \) for any \(A\in \mathcal{A}(\Omega)\), \(\mathcal{F}(\cdot ,A)\) is local for any \(A\in \mathcal{A}(\Omega)\), in the sense that if \(u,v\in GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ; \mathbb{R}^{m})\) satisfy \(u=v\) a.e. in \(A\), then \(\mathcal{F}(u,A)=\mathcal{F}(v,A)\), and there exist \(0<\alpha <\beta \) such that for any \(u\in GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\) and \(B\in \mathcal{B}(\Omega)\): \(\alpha \int_{B}\left\vert \nabla u\right\vert ^{p(x)}dx+\mathcal{H} ^{d-1}(J_{u}\cap B)\leq \mathcal{F}(u,B)\leq \beta \int_{B}\left\vert \nabla u\right\vert ^{p(x)}dx+\mathcal{H}^{d-1}(J_{u}\cap B)\). Here \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^{d}\) is an open and bounded domain with Lipschitz boundary, \(\mathcal{B}(\Omega)\) the set of Borel subsets of \(\Omega \), \(\mathcal{A} (\Omega)\) the set of open subsets of \(\Omega \), \(p(\cdot)\) a variable exponent supposed to be \(log\)-Hölder continuous, with \(p(x)\geq p^{-}>1\) for all \(x\in \Omega \), \(SBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\) the set of functions \(u\in SBV(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\) with \(\nabla u\in L^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m\times d})\) and \(\mathcal{H}^{d-1}(J_{u})<+\infty \), \(GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\) the set of functions such that for every \(\varphi \in C^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{m})\), such that \(\nabla \varphi \) has a compact support, \(\varphi \circ u\) belongs to \(SBV_{\mathrm{loc}}^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\), \(J_{u}\) the (approximate) jump set with corresponding normal \(\nu_{u}\) and one-sided limits \(u^{+}\) and \(u^{-}\), and \(\mathcal{H}^{d-1}\) the \(d-1\)-dimensional Hausdorff measure. The first main result proves an integral representation in \(GSBV^{p(\cdot)}\). Under the preceding hypotheses on \(p\) and \(\mathcal{F}\), then \[ \mathcal{F} (u,B)=\int_{B}f(x,u(x),\nabla u(x))dx+\int_{J_{u}\cap B}g(x,u^{+}(x),u^{-}(x),\nu_{u}(x))d\mathcal{H}^{d-1}(x), \] for all \(u\in GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\) and \(B\in \mathcal{B}(\Omega)\), where \(f\) is given by \[ f(x_{0},u_{0},\xi)=\limsup_{\varepsilon \rightarrow 0} \frac{m_{\mathcal{F}}(x_{0},u_{0},\xi ,B_{\varepsilon}(x_{0}))}{\gamma_{d}\varepsilon ^{d}}, \] for all \(x_{0}\in \Omega \), \(u_{0}\in \mathbb{R}^{m}\) , \(\xi \in \mathbb{R}^{m\times d}\), and \(g\) is given by \[ g(x_{0},a,b,\nu)=\limsup_{\varepsilon \rightarrow 0}\frac{m_{\mathcal{F}}(u_{x_{0},a,b,\nu},B_{\varepsilon}(x_{0})),}{\gamma_{d-1}\varepsilon ^{d-1}} \] for all \(x_{0}\in \Omega \), \(a,b\in \mathbb{R}^{m}\),, and \(\nu \in \mathbb{S}^{d-1}\). Here \(m_{ \mathcal{F}}(u,A)=inf_{v\in GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})}\{ \mathcal{F}(v,A):v=u\) in a neighborhood of \(\partial A\}\). The proof is mainly based on properties of \(GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\), on the derivation of a fundamental estimate in \(GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ; \mathbb{R}^{m})\) for functionals \(\mathcal{F}\), and on the verification that \(\mathcal{F}\) and \(m_{\mathcal{F}}\) have the same Radon-Nikodym derivative with respect to the measure \(\mu =\mathcal{L}^{d}\lfloor_{\Omega}+\mathcal{ H}^{d-1}\lfloor_{J_{u}\cap \Omega}\), where \(\mathcal{L}^{d}\) is the \(d\)-dimensional Lebesgue measure. The second main result proves a \(\Gamma\)-convergence result (with respect to the convergence in measure) for functionals \[ \mathcal{F}(u,A)=\int_{A}f(x,\nabla u(x))dx+\int_{J_{u}\cap A}g(x,[u](x),\nu_{u}(x))d\mathcal{H}^{d-1}(x), \] for \(u\in GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\), where \([u](x)=u^{+}(x)-u^{-}(x)\). The bulk integrand \(f\) is Borel measurable on \(\mathbb{R}^{d}\times \mathbb{R} ^{m\times d}\) and satisfies: \(c\left\vert \xi \right\vert ^{p(x)}\leq f(x,\xi)\leq C(1+\left\vert \xi \right\vert ^{p(x)})\). The surface integrand \(g\) is Borel measurable on \(\mathbb{R}^{d}\times \mathbb{R}_{0}^{m}\times \mathbb{S}^{d-1}\) and satisfies an estimate, lower and upper bounds and a symmetry property. The \(\Gamma \)-convergence result considers a sequence \(\mathcal{F}_{j}:GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\times \mathcal{A}(\Omega)\rightarrow \lbrack 0,+\infty)\) for bulk and surface integrands \(f_{j}\) and \(g_{j}\) which satisfy the preceding hypotheses. It proves the existence of a functional \(\mathcal{F}_{\infty}:GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\times \mathcal{A}(\Omega)\rightarrow \lbrack 0,+\infty)\) and a subsequence such that \(\mathcal{F}_{\infty}(\cdot ,A)=\Gamma \)-\(\lim_{j\rightarrow \infty}\mathcal{F}_{j}\) with respect to convergence in measure on \(A\) for all \(A\in \mathcal{A}(\Omega)\). Moreover, for every \(u\in GSBV^{p(\cdot)}(\Omega ;\mathbb{R}^{m})\) and \(A\in \mathcal{ A}(\Omega)\), \[ \mathcal{F}_{\infty}(u,A)=\int_{A}f_{\infty}(x,\nabla u(x))dx+\int_{J_{u}\cap A}g_{\infty}(x,u^{+}(x),u^{-}(x),\nu_{u}(x))d \mathcal{H}^{d-1}(x), \] where \(f_{\infty}\) and \(g_{\infty}\) take the above-indicated explicit expressions. The authors first prove some properties of the \(\Gamma \)-\(\liminf\) and \(\Gamma\)-\(\liminf\) with respect to the topology of the convergence in measure. They then use a compactness result. In the last part of their paper, the authors give some details concerning the bulk and surface densities of the \(\Gamma \)-limit.