Injectivity in second-gradient Nonlinear Elasticity

Abstract: We study injectivity for models of Nonlinear Elasticity that involve the second gradient. We assume that $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n$ is a domain, $f\in W^{2,q}(\Omega,\mathbb{R}^n)$ satisfies $|J_f|^{-a}\in L^1$ and that $f$ equals a given homeomorphism on $\partial \Omega$. Under suitable conditions on $q$ and $a$ we show that $f$ must be a homeomorphism. As a main new tool we find an optimal condition for $a$ and $q$ that imply that $\mathcal{H}^{n-1}({J_f=0})=0$ and hence $J_f$ cannot change sign. We further specify in dependence of $q$ and $a$ the maximal Hausdorff dimension $d$ of the critical set ${J_f=0}$. The sharpness of our conditions for $d$ is demonstrated by constructing respective counterexamples.