Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2018 / iii / Paper 105 / 1 / b

Let $u_j\in C_c^{\infty }({\mathbb{R}}^n)$ tend to $u$ in the Sobolev space $W^{1,p}$, using density of smooth functions in a Sobolev space. Write $\alpha =1-n/p>0$. Applying the Morrey inequality on a cube to a unit cube centered at $x$, and bounding its average by the Holder inequality, givesfor every smooth $v$. Hence $u_j$ is a Cauchy sequence in the supremum norm and has a bounded continuous limit $u^{\ast }$ by uniform convergence. On every finite-measure cube, this limit is also the $L^p$ limit, so $u=u^{\ast }$ almost everywhere.

For $x\ne y$, choose $r=4|x-y|$, so that $y\in Q_r(x)$. The second estimate from part (a), followed by passage to the limit, givesThus $u^{\ast }$ is a Hölder continuous function andIt is the unique continuous representative: two continuous functions agreeing almost everywhere agree everywhere.

For $1\le p<n$, take a smooth cutoff function $\chi$ equal to one near zero and setIts weak derivative has size $O(|x{|}^{-a-1})$ near zero, whose $p$th power is integrable because $p(a+1)<n$. Thus $u\in W^{1,p}$, but it is essentially unbounded in every neighborhood of zero and has no continuous representative. The value assigned at zero is irrelevant.