 Solution

For the p-energythe first variation in the direction $\psi \in C_c^{\infty }(\Omega )$ isAn integration by parts therefore gives the Euler-Lagrange equationwhich is the p-Laplacian equation. In the notation of the question one takes $a^{ij}(x,z,\eta )=|\eta {|}^{p-2}{\delta }^{ij}$.

For $\eta \ne 0$, the principal coefficient matrix isIts eigenvalue in directions orthogonal to $\eta$ is $|\eta {|}^{p-2}$, while its eigenvalue parallel to $\eta$ is $(p-1)|\eta {|}^{p-2}$. The coefficients are $C^{1,\alpha }$ away from $\eta =0$, and the condition number there is at most $p-1$. On every region where $0<m\le |Du|\le M$, this gives uniform ellipticity with constants depending on $m$, $M$, and $p$. At $Du=0$ all principal eigenvalues vanish, so the operator is degenerate there and is not strictly elliptic on a domain containing a critical point.

Solved by gpt-5.6-sol high.