Past exam of the calculus of variations course of the University of Oxford / 2011 / 1 / b

A global minimizer is an admissible function $\bar{u}$ for whichEquivalently it attains the infimum over the whole admissible class. Its endpoint traces must equal the prescribed boundary values; comparing only with nearby functions would define a local rather than a global notion.

The integrand is nonnegative, so $\inf I\ge 0$. For each positive integer $n$, setThis is a continuous piecewise affine sawtooth with zero endpoints, $0\le u_n\le 1/n$, and $u_n^{\prime }=\pm 2$ almost everywhere. It belongs to $W^{1,\infty }$, and $(u_n^{\prime }{)}^6=64$ almost everywhere. ThereforeTogether with nonnegativity this proves $\boxed{\underset{\mathcal{A}}{\inf }I=0}$. The functions converge uniformly to zero while their derivatives retain magnitude two; small amplitude does not force small gradient.

If an admissible $u$ attained the infimum zero, each nonnegative term of its integrand would vanish almost everywhere. In particular $|u{|}^{2011}=0$ almost everywhere, so $u=0$ in its Sobolev space and its weak derivative is zero. But then the remaining term is $(-64{)}^2=4096$ almost everywhere, giving $I(u)=4096$, a contradiction. Thus the infimum is zero but no global minimizer exists. The oscillatory sequence has no convergence of derivatives compatible with substitution into this nonconvex energy.