Maximum principle and generalized principal eigenvalue for degenerate elliptic operators (Q2345419)

In the very interesting paper under review, the authors characterize the validity of the maximum principle in bounded \(N\)-dimensional domains for fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic equations \[ F(x,u,Du,D^2u)=0 \] in terms of the sign of a suitably defined generalized principal eigenvalue. Here, the degeneracy means that \(F\) is non-increasing in the matrix entry and the maximum principle refers to the property of non-positivity of viscosity subsolutions of the Dirichlet problem. The new notion of generalized principal eigenvalue allows the authors to deal with arbitrary types of degeneracy of the elliptic operators. The relations are further discussed between this notion and other natural generalizations of the classical concept of principal eigenvalue, some of which have been previously introduced for particular classes of operators.