Relaxation of a scalar nonlocal variational problem with a double-well potential

Abstract

We consider nonlocal variational problems in Lp, like those that appear in peridynamics, where the functional object of the study is given by a double integral. It is known that convexity of the integrand implies the lower semicontinuity of the functional in the weak topology of Lp. If the integrand is not convex, a usual approach is to compute the relaxation, which is the lower semicontinuous envelope in the weak topology. In this paper we compute such a relaxation for a scalar problem with a double-well integrand. The relaxation is non-trivial, and, contrary to the local case, it cannot be represented as a double integral, as the original problem. Nonetheless, we show that, as for the local case, the relaxation can be expressed in terms of the energy of a suitable truncation of the considered functionThis work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity through project MTM2017-85934-C3-2-P (C.M.-C.) and project PGC2018-097104-B-100 and Juan de la Cierva Incorporation fellowship IJCI-2015-25084 (A.T.