New examples on Lavrentiev gap using fractals

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Publication:2004064



Abstract: Zhikov showed 1986 with his famous checkerboard example that functionals with variable exponents can have a Lavrentiev gap. For this example it was crucial that the exponent had a saddle point whose value was exactly the dimension. In 1997 he extended this example to the setting of the double phase potential. Again it was important that the exponents crosses the dimensional threshold. Therefore, it was conjectured that the dimensional threshold plays an important role for the Lavrentiev gap. We show that this is not the case. Using fractals we present new examples for the Lavrentiev gap and non-density of smooth functions. We apply our method to the setting of variable exponents, the double phase potential and weighted p-energy.


The paper deals with the Lavrentiev gap, i.e., the phenomenon which occurs when the minimum of an integral functional \(\mathcal{G}\) taken over smooth functions differs from the one taken over the associated energy space. The Lavrentiev gap is clearly closely related to the (non-)density of smooth functions, i.e. to the fact that \(H^{1,p(\cdot)}(\Omega)\neq W^{1,p(\cdot)}(\Omega)\), where \(p(\cdot)\) is variable exponent. In [Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR Ser. Mat., 50, No. 4, 675--710 (1986)], \textit{VV. Zhikov} presented a two-dimensional checkboard example with a Lavrentiev gap. In such an example and in others, the dimension played a critical role, since the exponent presents a saddle point where it crossed the dimension \(d\). In the present paper, the authors provide new examples of variable exponents, such that the Lavrentiev gap occurs but which do not need to cross the dimensional threshold. They also show that \(H^{1,p(\cdot)}(\Omega)\neq W^{1,p(\cdot)}(\Omega)\) and the ambiguity of the notion of \(p(\cdot)\)-harmonicity.




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