Paper 4, Section II, A

Partial Differential Equations
Part II, 2011

Consider the functional

E(u)=12Ωu2dx+ΩF(u,x)dxE(u)=\frac{1}{2} \int_{\Omega}|\nabla u|^{2} d x+\int_{\Omega} F(u, x) d x

where Ω\Omega is a bounded domain in Rn\mathbb{R}^{n} with smooth boundary and F:R×ΩRF: \mathbb{R} \times \Omega \rightarrow \mathbb{R} is smooth. Assume that F(u,x)F(u, x) is convex in uu for all xΩx \in \Omega and that there is a K>0K>0 such that

KF(v,x)K(v2+1)vR,xΩ-K \leqslant F(v, x) \leqslant K\left(|v|^{2}+1\right) \quad \forall v \in \mathbb{R}, x \in \Omega

(i) Prove that EE is well-defined on H01(Ω)H_{0}^{1}(\Omega), bounded from below and strictly convex. Assume without proof that EE is weakly lower-semicontinuous. State this property. Conclude the existence of a unique minimizer of EE.

(ii) Which elliptic boundary value problem does the minimizer solve?