Harmonic dipoles and the relaxation of the neo-Hookean energy in 3D elasticity

Abstract

We consider the problem of minimizing the neo-Hookean energy in \(3D\). The difficulty of this problem is that the space of maps without cavitation is not compact, as shown by Conti \& De Lellis with a pathological example involving a dipole. In order to rule out this behaviour we consider the relaxation of the neo-Hookean energy in the space of axisymmetric maps without cavitation. We propose a minimization space and a new explicit energy penalizing the creation of dipoles. This new energy, which is a lower bound of the relaxation of the original energy, bears strong similarities with the relaxed energy of Bethuel-Brezis-H\'elein in the context of harmonic maps into the sphere.