The Lavrentiev phenomenon in calculus of variations with differential forms (Q6190030)

In the paper under review the authors study variational problems associated with the integral functionals of the form \[ \mathcal{F}_{\Phi,b}(\omega)\colon = \int_{\Omega}\Phi(x, |d\omega|)dV+\int_{\Omega} b \wedge d\omega\, , \] where \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^N\), \(\Phi \colon \Omega \times \overline{\mathbb{R}_+}\to\overline{\mathbb{R}_+}\) is a generalized Orlicz function, \(\omega\) a differential \(k\)-form, \(b \in L^{\Phi^\ast(\cdot)}(\Omega, \Lambda^{N-k-1})\) and \(dV=dx^1 \dots dx^N\). The focus of the paper is on the conditions separating the case with the energy gap from the regular case for the integrands with nonstandard growth and, in particular, for the variable exponent and double phase models.