Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2015/iii/paper-9/3/a/solution

Use a Lipschitz continuous cutoff function which equals one on , vanishes outside , takes values in , and has . Its gradient is supported in the annulus . The function is an admissible test function in the zero-boundary Sobolev space for the weak solution, by approximation with smooth compactly supported test functions. If bounds the operator norm of , we can take . The weak equation and uniform ellipticity give
Young inequality bounds the right side by
After absorption, this annular Caccioppoli inequality is
The dimension is fixed in the notation of the question; with the entrywise coefficient bound its dependence on is absorbed there. If the larger ball merely lies in without its closure being compactly contained, approximation from smaller cutoff functions gives the same admissible test function and estimate. Crucially, the right side uses only the annulus, where the cutoff function varies. The constant is arbitrary because constants have zero gradient.

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