Null Lagrangian Measures in subspaces, compensated compactness and conservation laws

Abstract

Compensated compactness is an important method used to solve nonlinear PDEs. A simple formulation of a compensated compactness problem is to ask for conditions on a set $\mathcal{K}\subset M^{m\times n}$ such that $$ \lim_{n\rightarrow \infty} \mathrm{dist}(Du_n,\mathcal{K})\overset{L^p}{\rightarrow} 0\; \Rightarrow \{Du_{n}\}_{n}\text{ is precompact.} $$ Let $M_1,M_2,\dots, M_q$ denote the set of minors of $M^{m\times n}$. A sufficient condition for this is that any measure $μ$ supported on $\mathcal{K}$ satisfying $$ \int M_k(X) dμ(X)=M_k\left(\int X dμ(X)\right)\text{ for }k=1,2,\dots, q $$ is a Dirac measure. We call measures that satisfy the above equation "Null Lagrangian Measures" and we denote the set of Null Lagrangian Measures supported on $\mathcal{K}$ by $\mathcal{M}^{pc}(\mathcal{K})$. For general $m,n$, a necessary and sufficient condition for triviality of $\mathcal{M}^{pc}(\mathcal{K})$ was an open question even in the case where $\mathcal{K}$ is a linear subspace of $M^{m\times n}$. We answer this question and provide a necessary and sufficient condition for any linear subspace $\mathcal{K}\subset M^{m\times n}$. The ideas also allow us to show that for any $d\in \left\{1,2,3\right\}$, $d$-dimensional subspaces $\mathcal{K}\subset M^{m\times n}$ support non-trivial Null Lagrangian Measures if and only if $\mathcal{K}$ has Rank-$1$ connections. This is known to be false for $d\ge 4$. Using the ideas developed we are able to answer (up to first order) a question of Kirchheim, Müller and Sverak on the Null Lagrangian measures arising in the study of a (one) entropy solution of a $2\times 2$ system of conservation laws that arises in elasticity.