Necessary Condition for Integral Functional to have Extremum/Two Variables

Theorem
Let $D \subset \R^2$.

Let $S$ be a set of real mappings such that:


 * $S = \set {\map z {x, y}: \paren {z: S_1 \subseteq \R^2 \to S_2 \subseteq \R}, \paren {\map z {x, y} \in \map {C^1}D}, \paren {\map z \Gamma = 0} }$

Let $J \sqbrk z: S \to S_3 \subseteq \R$ be a functional of the form:


 * $\displaystyle \iint_D \map F {x, y, z, z_x, z_y} \rd x \rd y$

Then a necessary condition for $J \sqbrk y$ to have an extremum (strong or weak) for a given function $\map z {x, y}$ is that $\map z {x, y}$ satisfy Euler's equation:


 * $F_z - \dfrac \partial {\partial x} F_{z_x} - \dfrac \partial {\partial y} F_{z_y} = 0$

Proof
From Condition for Differentiable Functional to have Extremum we have


 * $\delta J \sqbrk {z; h} \bigg \rvert_{z \mathop = \hat z} = 0$

The variation exists if $J$ is a differentiable functional.

$\map h {x, y}$ vanishes on the boundary $\Gamma$:


 * $h \big \vert_{\Gamma} = 0$

From the definition of increment of a functional:



Using multivariate Taylor's theorem, expand $\map F {x, y, z + h, z_x + h_x, z_y + h_y}$ $h$, $h_x$ and $h_y$.

Denote the ordered tuples $\tuple {h, h_x, h_y}$ as $\mathbf h$ and $\tuple {z, z_x, z_y}$ as $\mathbf z$ respectively.

Then:

where the last term includes all terms of the order not lesser than 2 the elements of $\mathbf h$.

Substitute this back into the integral:


 * $\displaystyle \Delta J \sqbrk {y; h} = \iint_D \paren {\map F {x, y, \mathbf h}_z h + \map F {x, y, \mathbf z}_{z_x} h_x + \map F {x, y, \mathbf z}_{z_y} h_y + \mathcal O \paren {\mathbf h^2} } \rd x \rd y$

Terms in $\mathcal O \paren {\mathbf h^2}$ represent terms of order higher than 1 with respect to elements of $\mathbf h$.

By definition, the integral not counting in $\mathcal O \paren {\mathbf h^2}$ is a variation of functional:

Then for any $\map h {x, y}$ variation vanishes if:


 * $F_z - \dfrac \partial {\partial x} F_{z_x} - \dfrac \partial {\partial y} F_{z_y} = 0$