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Abstract We consider an energy functional motivated by the celebrated K 13 {K_{13}} problem in the Oseen–Frank theory of nematic liquid crystals. It is defined for sphere-valued functions and appears… Click to show full abstract
Abstract We consider an energy functional motivated by the celebrated K 13 {K_{13}} problem in the Oseen–Frank theory of nematic liquid crystals. It is defined for sphere-valued functions and appears as the usual Dirichlet energy with an additional surface term. It is known that this energy is unbounded from below and our aim has been to study the local minimisers. We show that even having a critical point in a suitable energy space imposes severe restrictions on the boundary conditions. Having suitable boundary conditions makes the energy functional bounded and in this case we study the partial regularity of the global minimisers.
Journal Title: Advances in Calculus of Variations
Year Published: 2019
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