The behaviour of microstructures with small shears of the austenite-martensite interface in martensitic phase transformations

Let $\Omega \subset \Bbb{R}^2$ denote a bounded domain whose boundary $\partial \Omega$ is Lipschitz and contains a segment $\Gamma_0$ representing the austenite-twinned martensite interface. We prove $$\displaystyle{\inf_{{u\in \cal W}(\Omega)} \int_\Omega \varphi(\nabla u(x,y))dxdy=0}$$ for any elastic energy density $\varphi : \Bbb{R}^2 \rightarrow 0,\infty)$ such that $\varphi(0,\pm 1)=0$. Here ${\cal W}(\Omega)$ consists of all Lipschitz functions $u$ with $u=0$ on $\Gamma_0$ and $|u_y|=1$ a.e. Apart from the trivial case $\Gamma_0 \subset \reel \times \{a\},~a\in \Bbb{R}$, this result is obtained through the construction of suitable minimizing sequences which differ substantially for vertical and non-vertical segments.