On the lower semicontinuity of certain integrals of the calculus of variations (Q919260)

Let \(X\) be a topological space, let \({\mathfrak A}\subset {\mathfrak p}(X)\) be a family of subsets of \(X\), and let \((D_ t)_{t\in T}\) be a net (\(T\) is a directed set) where every \(D_ t\) is a finite subfamily \(\{A_ 1,...,A_ n\}\) of elements of \({\mathfrak A}\) with \(\bar A_ i\neq \emptyset\) and \(\bar A_ i\cap \bar A_ j=\emptyset\) whenever \(i\neq j\). The Burkill-Cesari lower integral of a function \(f: {\mathfrak A}\to\mathbb R\) is defined by \[ \text{BC}\,\int_{*}f=\liminf_{t\in T}\sum_{A\in D_ t}f(A). \] The BC-upper integral is defined analogously, and \(f\) is called BC-integrable if \[ \text{BC}\,\int_{*}f=\text{BC}\,\int^{*}f \] and the common value is denoted by \(\text{BC}\,\int f\). By means of the BC-integral of \(f\) it is possible to construct a functional \(F(u)\) defined on curves \(u: [a,b]\to\mathbb R\) with bounded variation, and the question of proving lower semicontinuity results for such kind of functionals naturally arises. In the paper, under suitable conditions, the authors prove several lower semicontinuity results with respect to the weak* BV convergence \(u_ h\to u\) a.e. and \(\sup_{n\in \mathbb N}V(u_ n)<+\infty\) being \(V(u_ n)\) the variation of the curve \(u_ n\). The last section of the paper is devoted to integrals depending on second order differentials.