Quasiconvexity and nonlinear Elasticity

Quasiconvexity is the fundamental existence condition for variational problems, yet it is poorly understood. Two outstanding problems remain: 

• 1) does rank-one convexity, a simple necessary condition, imply quasiconvexity in two dimensions? 

• 2) can one prove existence theorems for quasiconvex energies in the context of nonlinear Elasticity? 

In this talk we show that both problems have a positive answer in a special class of isotropic energies. Our proof combines complex analysis with the theory of gradient Young measures. On the way to the main result, we establish quasiconvexity inequalities for the Burkholder function which yield, in particular, many sharp higher integrability results. 
The talk is based on joint work with Kari Astala, Daniel Faraco, Aleksis Koski and Jan Kristensen.