Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-calculus-of-variations-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2009/3/b/ii/solution

Zero is neither a weak nor a strong local minimizer. For any nonzero smooth zero-trace , Taylor expansion gives
The mixed integral by the endpoint values. Writing and , the quadratic coefficient is . The elementary estimate on makes this at most . Thus arbitrarily small variations decrease the energy. The separate coefficient one on is retained in this calculation.

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