An invitation to \(n\)-harmonic hyperelasticity (Q652900)

The authors survey their recent results on variational problems for Sobolev homeomorphisms. The principal issues addressed here are the existence, regularity, and symmetry of minimizers. Even for convex energy integrands such as \(|D u|^n\) the existence of minimizers is not guaranteed due to the fact that the set of homeomorphisms is not convex. And indeed, the authors show that the existence of homeomorphic minimizers depends on the geometry of the domains involved, sometimes in an unexpected way. Even more surprising is their discovery that minimizers do not necessarily respect the symmetry of the domains. For example, the minimum of energy among homeomorphisms between two spherical annuli may be attained by a map that is not radially symmetric. Both the dimension of the ambient space and the conformal modulus of the annuli affect the symmetry of minimizers. To attack the challenging problems listed above, the authors develop original methods of free Lagrangians and conformal coercion. The proofs of many results stated in this survey can be found in the authors' article [Math. Ann. 348, No. 1, 35--55 (2010; Zbl 1214.30011)] and in their monograph [``\(n\)-harmonic mappings between annuli'', Mem. Am. Math. Soc. (to appear) (2012; \url{doi:10.1090/S0065-9266-2011-00640-4})].