Nonsmooth critical point theory on closed convex sets and nonlinear hemivariational inequali\-ties (Q1776944)

The authors construct a constrained nonsmooth critical point theory for locally Lipschitz functionals that are defined only on closed convex subsets of reflexive Banach spaces. This extends Struwe's corresponding theory in the smooth case. The basic technical tool in the extension is represented by the notion of generalized gradient in the sense of Clarke. The authors prove a deformation result in this generalized setting. Using it, two different minimax principles are then established. The abstract results are applied to obtain nonnegative solutions of hemivariational inequalities involving the \(p\)-Laplacian. In particular, the results are useful to treat elliptic boundary value problems with discontinuous nonlinearities.