Quasi-minima (Q794260)

A notion of quasi-minimum (Q-minimum) is defined for the functional of calculus of variations \(F(u;\Omega)=\int_{\Gamma}f(x,u(x),Du(x))dx,\) where \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain in \(R^ n\), \(u=(u^ 1,...,u^ N)\quad(N\geq 1)\) is a function defined on \(\Omega\) and f(x,u,p) is a Carathéodory function. Then it is shown that this notion includes among others the minima of variational integrals, the solutions of elliptic differential equations and of variational inequalities, the quasi-regular mappings. The problem of the regularity of Q-minima is also discussed, and several results concerning the regularity for Q-minima in \(L^ p\) and \(C^{0\alpha}\)-spaces are obtained. In the case where \(N=1\) some qualitative properties for Q-minima like the weak maximum principle or the Liouville property are proved. A stability result for Q-minima with respect to \(\Gamma\)-convergence of a sequence of functionals is also given.