In the scalar n-dimensional situation, the extreme points in the set of certain gradient Lp-Young measures are studied. For n = 1, such Young measures must be composed from Diracs, while for n ≥ 2 there are non-Dirac extreme points among them, for n ≥ 3, some are even weakly* continuous. This is used to construct nontrivial examples of nonexistence of solutions of the minimization-type variational problem Integral0 W(x, nabla u) dx with a Caratheodory (if n ≥ 2) or even continuous (if n ≥ 3) integrand W.

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Tomás Roubícek

Mathematical Institute, Charles University, Sokolovská 83, 18675 Praha 8, Czech Republic

Vladimír Sverak

School of Mathematics, Vincent Hall, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, U.S.A.

T. Roubícek, V. Sverak. “Nonexistence of Solutions in Nonconvex Multidimensional Variational Problems.” Journal of Convex Analysis 7 (2000), No. 2, 427–435.