Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-partial-differential-equations-for-pure-and-applied-mathematicians-and-calculus-of-variations-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2007/a/3/solution
Past exam of the partial differential equations for pure and applied mathematicians and calculus of variations course of the University of Oxford 2007 A 3 Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-31
Bounded coefficients and Cauchy-Schwarz give . Uniform ellipticity gives because . Poincaré inequality holds on of a bounded domain, soA weak solution is satisfying for every . The energy is finite by boundedness of and the forcing functional, andIt is bounded below and a minimizing sequence is bounded in the Hilbert space . Its closed linear span is separable, so part 1 supplies a weakly convergent subsequence with limit . Symmetry and nonnegativity of showThe forcing term converges by weak convergence. Thus , proving attainment. First variation in every zero-trace direction gives the weak equation. If are two solutions, test their difference equation with and use coercivity to get . Hence there is exactly one weak solution, and it is the unique energy minimizer. Indeed directly verifies the minimizing property.
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