problem: Find extrermals for the following functional:
(b)
free
Solution:
Starting from first principles. First the preliminary standard setup:
Let , where is the set of admissible functions, and , hence
Let be the set of the permissible directions defined as for some real scalar
And and
Now we write
Therefor a necessary condition for to be a local minimum for the functional is that for all , which means
Integrating by parts the second term above results in the general expression for the necessary condition for to be a local minimum for , which is
| (see 3.15 in text) |
Since , the second term above simplifies, and the above equation becomes
| (1) |
Now we apply the following argument: Out of all functions , we can find a set which has the property such that . For these only (1) becomes
Where now we apply the other standard argument: Since the above is true for every arbitrary (but remember now is such that but since there are so many such still, then the argument still holds) , then it must mean that
| (2) |
This will generate a second order ODE, which we will solve, with the boundary conditions
But we need another boundary condition. Then we hold off solving this for one moment. Let us now consider those functions which have the property that For these 's, and for the second term in (1) to become zero, we now must have
| (3) |
Now from (3) we have , which means
Hence
This gives us the second boundary condition we needed to solve (2).
Hence to summarize the problem becomes that of solving for given
with the boundary conditions and
Now (2) can be written as
Hence
Assume , hence the characteristic equation is
Since we have repeated root, then the solution is
When , hence
when hence
Hence the solution is
or
problem: determine the natural boundary condition at for the variational problem defined by where and is a given differentiable function on
Solution:
Starting from first principles, first the preliminary standard setup.
Let , where is the set of admissible functions, and Hence Let be a set of permissible directions defined as for some real scalar , and Let , and
Now we write
Therefor a necessary condition for to be a local minimum for is that for all , which means
Integrating the second term in the integral above by parts results in the general expression for the necessary condition for to be a local minimum for , which is
Hence
Since , we must have , then the above simplifies to
| (1) |
Let us now consider those functions which have the property that For these 's, for the second term in (1) to become zero, we now must have
Hence
Hence the natural boundary condition on at must satisfy the above. (I do not see how can one go further without being given what and are.)