Estimates for the constant in two nonlinear Korn inequalities

Abstract

A nonlinear Korn inequality estimates the distance between two immersions from an open subset of [Formula: see text] into the Euclidean space [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], in terms of the distance between specific tensor fields that determine the two immersions up to a rigid motion in [Formula: see text]. We establish new inequalities of this type in two cases: when k = n, in which case the tensor fields are the square roots of the metric tensor fields induced by the two immersions, and when k = 3 and n = 2, in which case the tensor fields are defined in terms of the fundamental forms induced by the immersions. These inequalities have the property that their constants depend only on the open subset over which the immersions are defined and on three scalar parameters defining the regularity of the immersions, instead of constants depending on one of the immersions, considered as fixed, as up to now.