The Hölder continuity for the gradient of solutions to one-sided obstacle problems (Q1206677)

Let \(G\) be a bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^ n\). For each \(\varepsilon\in (0,1)\) functions \(A_ \varepsilon(x,u,\xi)\) and \(B_ \varepsilon(x,u,\xi)\) are defined on \(G\times\mathbb{R}^ 1\times\mathbb{R}^ n\), measurable in \(x\) for fixed \(u\) and \(\xi\), and continuous in \(u\) and \(\xi\) for fixed \(x\) in \(G\) almost everywhere. The one-sided obstacle problem of the following set of variational inequalities of elliptic type in the case \(1<p<2\) is considered: \[ \int_ G\bigl\{\nabla v\cdot A_ \varepsilon(x,u,\nabla u)+ v\cdot B_ \varepsilon(x,u,\nabla u)\bigr\} dx\geq 0\quad\text{for all }v\in \mathring W^ 1_ p(G).\tag{1} \] A theorem about the Hölder continuity of the gradient of the solution \(u_ \varepsilon(x)\) of problem (1) is proved. Particularly if \(A_ \varepsilon(x,u,\xi)= (\varepsilon+|\xi|^ 2)^{(p-2)/2}\cdot \xi\) and \(| B_ \varepsilon(x,u,\xi)|\leq C(|\xi|^{p- 1}+ | u|^{p-1}+ 1)\) for all \((x,u,\xi)\in G\times \mathbb{R}^ 1\times \mathbb{R}^ n\), \(C>25\) independent of \(\varepsilon\), and a constant \(M>0\) such that \(\| u_ \varepsilon\|_{L_ p(G)}\leq M\) (uniformly in \(\varepsilon\)) exists, then \(u_ \varepsilon\) has a Hölder continuous gradient \(\nabla u\). Moreover the Hölder exponent \(\alpha>0\) and the Hölder coefficient of \(\nabla u_ \varepsilon\) on any compact \(G'\subset\subset G\) are independent of \(\varepsilon\). It is supposed that the obstacle function \(\psi\) is an element of \(C^{1,\beta}(G)\) \((\beta>0)\).