Regularity for free interface variational problems in a general class of gradients (Q514278)

The paper deals with a class of optimal design problems with a perimeter penalization. More precisely, the author considers energies of the form \[ (u,A)\rightarrow \int_{\Omega}2fu\, dx-\int_{\Omega\cap A}\sigma_1 \mathcal{A}u\, \mathcal{A}u dx- \int_{\Omega\setminus A}\sigma_2 u \mathcal{A}u\,\mathcal{A}u dx + \mathrm{Per} (A;\bar{\Omega}), \] where \(\Omega\) is a bounded Lipschitz domain, \(A\subset \mathbb R^N\) is a Borel set, \( u:\Omega\subset \mathbb R^N\rightarrow \mathbb R^d\), \(\mathcal{A}\) is an operator of gradient form, and \(\sigma_1\), \(\sigma_2\) are two not necessarily well-ordered symmetric tensors. Some results on the existence and regularity properties of saddle points are obtained. Under some assumptions on \(f\), the author shows that for a solution \((w, A)\) the topological boundary of \(A \subset \Omega\) is locally a \(C^1\)-hypersurface up to a closed set of zero \(\mathcal{H}^{N-1}\)-measure. The class of operators of gradient form includes scalar and vector-valued gradients, symmetrized gradients, and higher order gradients. Therefore, the results may be applied to a wide range of problems in elasticity, conductivity or plasticity models.