Chiara Tanteri
In this thesis we will treat the Dirichlet problem for systems of implicit equations, i.e. where Ω ⊂ Rn is an open set, u : Ω → Rm, Fi : Ω × Rm × Rm×n → R, m,n ≥ 1, are continuous functions and φ, the boundary datum, is given. At first we will be interested in the study of problems of the type (1) under constraints. We will show theorems of existence of Lipschitz solutions using an approach based on Baire category theorem. As corollaries of our abstract results, we will give two theorems related to the constraints det Du > 0 and det Du = 1, the constraints most closely related to the applications. Indeed, the constraints det Du > 0 and det Du = 1 come from nonlinear elasticity and represent respectively the conditions of non interpenetration of matter and incompressibility. In the second part of this study, we will focus on the applications. We will treat many examples such as the case of singular values, potential wells under the incompressibility constraint (i.e. det Du = l), the problem of confocal ellipses, the problem of nematic elastomers, particularly related to the fields of nonlinear elasticity, the microstructure of the crystals and the optimal design, as well as the complex eikonal equation (application related to geometric optics). From the mathematical point of view, we will give sufficient conditions of solvability of the system (1). These conditions consist in characterizing the different convex hulls. Indeed, the possibility of representing these sets, in algebraic terms, gives one of the conditions which the boundary datum must satisfy so that a problem of the type (1) admits a solution. Finally we will extend to polyconvex sets properties such as the gauge, the characterization of the extreme points and the Choquet function, all of which are well-known tools within the framework of classical convex analysis.
EPFL2000
