Equilibrium configurations of epitaxially strained thin films (Q991051)

Summary: We present some regularity results on equilibrium configurations for a variational model introduced to describe the epitaxial growth of an elastic film over a thick flat substrate when a lattice mismatch between the two materials is present. We also give a sufficient condition for local minimality based on second variation and apply it to determine analitycally the critical threshold for the local minimality of the flat configuration.