Regularity results for minimizers of non-autonomous integral functionals

Abstract: We establish the higher fractional differentiability for the minimizers of non-autonomous integral functionals of the form \begin{equation} \mathcal{F}(u,\Omega):=\int_\Omega \left[ f(x,Du)- g \cdot u \right] dx , \notag \end{equation} under $(p,q)$-growth conditions. Besides a suitable differentiability assumption on the partial map $x \mapsto D_\xi f(x,\xi)$, we do not need to assume any differentiability assumption on the function $g$. Moreover, we show that the higher differentiability result holds true also assuming strict convexity and growth conditions on $f$ only at infinity.