A general class of free boundary problems for fully nonlinear elliptic equations (Q2453517)

The aim of the paper is to prove optimal regularity for \(W^{2,n}\) solutions \(u:B_1\to\mathbb R\) to the free boundary problem \(F(D^2u)=1\) a.e. in \(B_1\cap\Omega\), \(|D^2u|\leq K\) a.e. in \(B_1\setminus\Omega\), where \(K\) is a positive constant, \(B_1\) is the unit ball in \(\mathbb R^n\), \(\Omega\) is an unknown open set in \(\mathbb R^n\), \(F(0)=0\), \(F\) is uniformly elliptic and either convex or concave. This class of equations covers both the obstacle problem (right hand side given by \(\chi_{[u\neq0]}\)) and the more general free boundary problem with the right hand side of the form \(\chi_{[\nabla u\neq0]}\) studied by \textit{L. Caffarelli} and \textit{J. Salazar} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 354, No. 8, 3095--3115 (2002; Zbl 0992.35101)]. The two main results concern the interior \(C^{1,1}\) regularity of \(u\) and the free boundary regularity. The former one says that under the above assumptions the solution \(u\) possesses the interior \(C^{1,1}\) regularity, namely \(\|D^2u\|\leq C\) with \(C\) dependent on \(K\), the ellipticity constants of \(F\) and \(\|u\|_{L^\infty(B_1)}\) only. To obtain the free boundary regularity result the authors introduce the following concept of thickness of the set \(B_1\setminus\Omega\) in \(B_r(x)\) for \(r>0\): \(\delta_r(u,x)=MD(B_r(x)\cap B_1\setminus\Omega)r^{-1}\) where \(MD(E)\) is the smallest possible distance between two parallel hyperplanes containing the set \(E\). They prove that if \(F\) is convex, either \(\Omega\supset\{\nabla u\neq0\}\) and \(F\in C^1\) or \(\Omega\supset\{u\neq0\}\), and \(\delta_r(u,x)>\varepsilon\) for some \(\varepsilon>0\) and for all \(x\in\partial\Omega\cap B_r(0)\), \(r<1/4\), then there exists \(r_0>0\) dependent only on \(\varepsilon\) and the data such that \(\partial\Omega\cap B_{r_0}(0)\) represents a \(C^1\)-graph.