Partial regularity for symmetric quasiconvex functionals on BD

Abstract: We establish the first partial regularity results for (strongly) symmetric quasiconvex functionals of linear growth on BD, the space of functions of bounded deformation. By Rindler's foundational work (Lower semicontinuity for integral functionals in the space of functions of bounded deformation via rigidity and Young measures, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 202 (2011), no. 1, 63-113), symmetric quasiconvexity is the foremost notion as to sequential weak*-lower semicontinuity of functionals on BD. The overarching main difficulty here is Ornstein's Non-Inequality, implying that the BD-case is genuinely different from the study of variational integrals on BV. In particular, this paper extends the recent work of Kristensen and the author (Partial regularity for BV-Minimizers, Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 232 (2019), Issue 3, 1429-1473) from the BV- to the BD-situation. Alongside, we establish partial regularity results for strongly quasiconvex functionals of superlinear growth by reduction to the full gradient case, which might be of independent interest.