MINIMIZERS AND GAMMA-CONVERGENCE OF ENERGY FUNCTIONALS DERIVED FROM $p$-LAPLACIAN EQUATION

Abstract

This paper presents the existence of minimizers and $\Gamma$-convergence for the energey functionals \begin{eqnarray*} E_\epsilon(u) = \int_\Omega \left\{ W(u(x))+\epsilon{|\nabla u(x)|^p}\right\} dx, \mbox{ for all }\epsilon>0,\quad p>1 \end{eqnarray*} with Neumann boundary condition and the constraint \begin{eqnarray*} \int_\Omega u(x) dx = m|\Omega|, \mbox{ where }0 \lt m \lt 1. \end{eqnarray*} The energy functionals discussed in this paper are associated with the Euler-Lagrange $p$-Laplacian equation. We employ the direct method in the calculus of variations to show the existence of minimizers. The $\Gamma$-convergence is achieved with the help of coarea formula and Young's inequality.