 Coercive variable-coefficient Dirichlet form

On the zero-boundary Sobolev space $H_0^1(0,1)$ with norm $\Vert u^{\prime }{\Vert }_{L^2}$, assume measurable coefficients $0<p_0\le p\le p_1$ and $0\le q\le q_1$. The Poincaré inequality and Cauchy-Schwarz inequality give $|a(u,v)|\le (p_1+q_1/{\pi }^2)\Vert u^{\prime }{\Vert }_2\Vert v^{\prime }{\Vert }_2$, while nonnegativity of $q$ gives $a(u,u)\ge p_0\Vert u^{\prime }{\Vert }_2^2$. Thus the form is a bounded bilinear form and a coercive bilinear form. For a source in $H^{-1}$, the Lax-Milgram theorem yields a unique weak solution and every conforming Galerkin method approximation. No derivative of the bounded coefficient $p$ is needed for this weak formulation.