The Dirichlet problem in Lipschitz domains for higher order elliptic systems with rough coefficients (Q977298)

In the very interesting paper under review, the authors study the Dirichlet problem for divergence form strongly elliptic systems of arbitrary order with bounded and complex-valued coefficients over Lipschitz domains and with boundary data belonging to Besov spaces. Precisely, let \(\Omega\subset\mathbb R^n,\) \(n\geq2,\) be a bounded Lipschitz domain with outward unit normal \(\nu=(\nu_1,\ldots,\nu_n)\) and consider the operator \[ {\mathcal L}(X,D_X) {\mathcal U}:=\sum_{|\alpha|=|\beta|=m} D^\alpha (A_{\alpha\beta}(X)D^\beta {\mathcal U}), \] where \(m\in\mathbb N\) is a fixed integer, \(D^\alpha:=(-i\partial/\partial x_1)^{\alpha_1}\cdots(-i\partial/\partial x_n)^{\alpha_n}\) with \(\alpha=(\alpha_1,\dots,\alpha_n)\) and \(X=(x_1,\dots,x_n).\) The paper deals with the following Dirichlet problem for the operator \(\mathcal L\) \[ \begin{cases} {\mathcal L}(X,D_X) {\mathcal U}=0 & \text{for}\;X\in \Omega,\\ {{\partial^k {\mathcal U}}\over {\partial \nu^k}}=g_k & \text{on}\;\partial\Omega,\;0\leq k\leq m-1, \end{cases}\tag{1} \] where the boundary data \(\{g_k\}_{0\leq k\leq m-1}\) belong to suitable higher order Besov spaces. It is assumed that the coefficients \(A_{\alpha\beta}\) of the differential operator are \(l\times l\) matrix-valued functions with measurable, complex-valued entries (\(l\in \mathbb N\)) for which there is a constant \(\kappa>0\) such that \[ \sum_{|\alpha|=|\beta|=m} \|A_{\alpha\beta}\|_{L^\infty(\Omega)}\leq \kappa^{-1}, \] and with the property that the coercivity condition \[ \text{Re\,} \int_\Omega \langle A_{\alpha\beta}(X)D^\beta {\mathcal V}(X), D^\alpha {\mathcal V}(X)\rangle dX\geq \kappa \sum_{|\alpha|=m} \|D^\alpha {\mathcal V}\|^2_{L^2(\Omega)} \] holds for all \(\mathbb C^l\)-valued functions \({\mathcal V}\in C_0^\infty(\Omega).\) The solution of \((*)\) is sought in the space \(W^{m,a}_p(\Omega)\) defined as the space of vector-valued functions for which \[ \left(\sum_{|\alpha|\leq m} \int_\Omega |D^\alpha {\mathcal U}(X)|^p \rho(X)^{pa} dX\right)^{1/p}<\infty, \] where \(p\in(1,\infty)\) and \(a\in(-1/p, 1-p)\) are fixed and \(\rho(X)=\text{dist\,}(X,\partial\Omega)\). In particular, for each \({\mathcal U}\in W^{m,a}_p(\Omega)\) the traces of \(D^\alpha {\mathcal U}\), \(0\leq |\alpha|\leq m-1\), exist in the Besov space \(B^s_p(\partial\Omega)\) with \(s=1-a-1/p\). The main result of the paper asserts that under the above assumptions, the Dirichlet problem \((*),\) with data taken from the Besov space \(B^s_p(\partial\Omega),\) has a unique solution \({\mathcal U}\in W^{m,a}_p(\Omega)\) for each \(p\in(1,\infty),\) \(s\in(0,1)\) and with \(a=1-s-1/p,\) provided the coefficients matrices \(A_{\alpha\beta}\) belong to \(\text{VMO}(\Omega)\) and the exterior normal \(\nu\) to \(\partial\Omega\) belongs to \(\text{VMO}(\partial\Omega).\) A sharp corollary of that solvability result is that the operator \({\mathcal L}(X,D_X)\) performs an isomorphism between weighted Sobolev spaces when its coefficients and the unit normal of the boundary belong to the space \(\text{VMO}\).