(1) Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of Helsinki, P.O. Box 68, FIN-00014 Helsinki, Finland;(2) Department of Mathematical Sciences, NTNU, 7491 Trondheim, Norway
Abstract:
We define and study variable exponent Sobolev spaces with zero boundary values. This allows us to prove that the Dirichlet energy integral has a minimizer in the variable exponent case. Our results are based on a Poincaré-type inequality, which we prove under a certain local jump condition for the variable exponent.