Minimal currents and relaxation of variational integrals on mappings of bounded variation (Q919255)

The authors consider variational integrals for currents with locally finite mass on \(R^ n\). The main result asserts (without a proof) that under a growth condition for the integrand a shortest curve is a minimal current. As a consequence an explicit form of the lower semicontinuity envelope (the relaxation) of a functional for a problem in several independent variables is obtained.