Existence of static solutions of the semilinear Maxwell equations (Q996958)

The authors study the static solutions to the semilinear Maxwell equations in the magneto-static state. It correponds to the description of the magnetic field developed by M. Born and L. Infeld. The problem reduces to looking for minima of \[ E[A] = \frac 12\int_{\mathbb R^3} |\nabla \times A|^2\, dx - \int_{R^3} W(|A|^2)\, dx, \] where \(A\) is the gauge potential for the magnetic field \(H\) (i.e. \(H=\nabla \times A\)). The authors carefully show that it is natural to assume div \(A =0\) (which is a well-known fact in physics) and thus it is reasonable to look for \(A\) in the form \[ A(x) = A(\sqrt{x_1^2+x_2^2},x_3)(-x_2,x_1,0). \] Under certain growth conditions on the function \(W\) they prove the existence of a minimizer to \(E[\cdot]\) in the form above, using relatively standard tool from the calculus of variations.