Lectures on the Ekeland Variational Principle with Applications and Detours


Book Description

Since its publication in 1972, the variational principle of Ekeland has found many applications in different fields of Analysis. Some are very scattered in the literature and therein lies the motivation of these notes. They are intended for the use of students and therefore include several detours through related material. Some readers may be surprised to find a chapter on Nemytskii mappings: however their properties are seldom proved though often referred to and the proofs presented here are more straightforward than those in the standard sources of Krasnoselskii or Vainberg. Two chapters cover applications to (semilinear elliptic) PDE. The central chapter is on Brézis' proof of the minimax theorems of Ambrosetti and Rabinowitz. To keep the text self-contained, some convex analysis is developed (for the treatment of the duality mapping) and some geometry of Banach spaces. These notes are based on a course given by the author at the Tata Institute in 1987.







Ekeland Variational Principle


Book Description







Topological and Variational Methods with Applications to Nonlinear Boundary Value Problems


Book Description

This book focuses on nonlinear boundary value problems and the aspects of nonlinear analysis which are necessary to their study. The authors first give a comprehensive introduction to the many different classical methods from nonlinear analysis, variational principles, and Morse theory. They then provide a rigorous and detailed treatment of the relevant areas of nonlinear analysis with new applications to nonlinear boundary value problems for both ordinary and partial differential equations. Recent results on the existence and multiplicity of critical points for both smooth and nonsmooth functional, developments on the degree theory of monotone type operators, nonlinear maximum and comparison principles for p-Laplacian type operators, and new developments on nonlinear Neumann problems involving non-homogeneous differential operators appear for the first time in book form. The presentation is systematic, and an extensive bibliography and a remarks section at the end of each chapter highlight the text. This work will serve as an invaluable reference for researchers working in nonlinear analysis and partial differential equations as well as a useful tool for all those interested in the topics presented.




Djairo G. de Figueiredo - Selected Papers


Book Description

This volume presents a collection of selected papers by the prominent Brazilian mathematician Djairo G. de Figueiredo, who has made significant contributions in the area of Differential Equations and Analysis. His work has been highly influential as a challenge and inspiration to young mathematicians as well as in development of the general area of analysis in his home country of Brazil. In addition to a large body of research covering a variety of areas including geometry of Banach spaces, monotone operators, nonlinear elliptic problems and variational methods applied to differential equations, de Figueiredo is known for his many monographs and books. Among others, this book offers a sample of the work of Djairo, as he is commonly addressed, advancing the study of superlinear elliptic problems (both scalar and system cases), including questions on critical Sobolev exponents and maximum principles for non-cooperative elliptic systems in Hamiltonian form.




Variational Methods in Nonlinear Analysis


Book Description

This well-thought-out book covers the fundamentals of nonlinear analysis, with a particular focus on variational methods and their applications. Starting from preliminaries in functional analysis, it expands in several directions such as Banach spaces, fixed point theory, nonsmooth analysis, minimax theory, variational calculus and inequalities, critical point theory, monotone, maximal monotone and pseudomonotone operators, and evolution problems.




The Mountain Pass Theorem


Book Description

This 2003 book presents min-max methods through a study of the different faces of the celebrated Mountain Pass Theorem (MPT) of Ambrosetti and Rabinowitz. The reader is led from the most accessible results to the forefront of the theory, and at each step in this walk between the hills, the author presents the extensions and variants of the MPT in a complete and unified way. Coverage includes standard topics, but it also covers other topics covered nowhere else in book form: the non-smooth MPT; the geometrically constrained MPT; numerical approaches to the MPT; and even more exotic variants. Each chapter has a section with supplementary comments and bibliographical notes, and there is a rich bibliography and a detailed index to aid the reader. The book is suitable for researchers and graduate students. Nevertheless, the style and the choice of the material make it accessible to all newcomers to the field.




An Introduction to Minimax Theorems and Their Applications to Differential Equations


Book Description

The book is intended to be an introduction to critical point theory and its applications to differential equations. Although the related material can be found in other books, the authors of this volume have had the following goals in mind: To present a survey of existing minimax theorems, To give applications to elliptic differential equations in bounded domains, To consider the dual variational method for problems with continuous and discontinuous nonlinearities, To present some elements of critical point theory for locally Lipschitz functionals and give applications to fourth-order differential equations with discontinuous nonlinearities, To study homoclinic solutions of differential equations via the variational methods. The contents of the book consist of seven chapters, each one divided into several sections. Audience: Graduate and post-graduate students as well as specialists in the fields of differential equations, variational methods and optimization.