Elliptic systems with measurable coefficients of the type of Lamé system in three dimensions (Q719226)

Let us set \(\mathbf{u} = (u^1,u^2,u^3) \) as the unknown term, and let the inhomogeneous term be \(f=(f^1,f^2,f^3), \) as vector valued functions defined on a, possibly unbounded, domain \(\Omega \subset R^n. \) In the note the authors are concerned with the system of equations \[ \nabla \times (a(x) \nabla \times \mathbf{u} )\,-\,\nabla \times (b(x) \nabla \times \mathbf{u} )\,=\,f \] in the domain \(\Omega\). They study the \(3\times 3 \) above elliptic system, where the coefficients \(a(x) \) and \(b(x) \) are positive scalar functions that are measurable and bounded away from zero and infinity. The authors prove that weak solutions of the system are Hölder continuous under some minimal conditions on the inhomogeneous term \(f\). Also some applications are presented and several related topics including estimates of the Green's functions and the heat kernels of the above systems are discussed. With this estimate at hand, the authors are able to show that there exists a unique Green's function \(G(x,y) \) of the above system in an arbitrary domain \(\Omega \subset R^n, \) and it has the natural bound \[ |G(x,y)|\leq N \, |x-y|^{-1} \] for all \(x,y \in \Omega \) such that \(0<|x\,-\,y|<d_x \wedge d_y, \) where \(d_x=\mathrm{dist}(x, \partial \Omega), \) \(a \wedge b=\mathrm{min} (a,b) \) and \(N \) is a constant independent of \(\Omega. \) When \(\Omega = R^n \) the above mentioned estimate holds for all \(x \neq y. \) It also follows that the heat kernel \(K_t(x,y) \) of the system exists in any domain \(\Omega, \) and, in the case when \(\Omega = R^n, \) the authors have an usual Gaussian bound for \(K_t(x,y). \) Another goal of this note is to establish a global Hölder estimate for weak solutions of the system \[ \nabla \times (a(x) \nabla \times \mathbf{u} )\,=\,0, \qquad \nabla \mathbf{u} \,=\,0,\quad \mathrm{in} \;\Omega \] in a bounded Lipschitz domain.