Existence and relaxation results for nonlinear second-order multivalued boundary value problems in \(\mathbb{R}^N\) (Q1268569)

Continuing previous work [e.g., \textit{D. A. Kandilakis} and \textit{N. S. Papageorgiou}, J. Differ. Equations 132, No. 1, 107-125 (1996; Zbl 0859.34011), \textit{D. Kravvaritis} and \textit{N. S. Papageorgiou}, J. Math. Anal. Appl. 185, 146-160 (1994; Zbl 0817.34009)], the authors prove a large number of results (some 24 theorems, 24 propositions and other 20 corollaries) concerning existence and certain qualitative properties of solutions to BVPs of the form: \[ x''(t)\in F(t,x(t),x'(t)) \text{ a.e. }([0,b]),\;(x'(0),-x'(b))\in \xi (x(0),x(b)). \] The largest number of results state either the existence of solutions \(x(.)\in W^{1,2}\) or the fact that the set \(S\subset W^{1,2}\) of solutions is nonempty and weakly compact; the decisive argument in the proofs of these results (after some technical manipulations) is the well-known Leray-Schauder alternative. Other results concern the set \(S_e\) of ``extremal'' solutions to the problem: \[ x''(t)\in\text{ext}F(t,x(t),x'(t)) \;a.e.([0,b]),\;x(0)=x'(0)=0,\;-x'(b)\in \xi(x(b)), \] where \(\text{ext}A\) denotes the extreme points of the subset \(A\subset\mathbb{R}^N\), the set \(S_c\) of ''relaxed'' solutions to the problem: \[ x''(t)\in \overline{co}F(t,x(t)) \text{ a.e. }([0,1]),\;x(0)=x(1)=0, \] where \(\overline {co}A\) denotes the closed convex hull of \(A\) and the hypotheses under which \(Cl(S_e)=S_c\) (in the space \(W^{1,2}\)) and \(Cl(S)=S_c\) (in the space \(W^{1,1}_0\)), respectively. The large number of corollaries, remarks and bibliographical comments recommend this paper as a possible ``survey'' of some of the most recent results in the theory of BVPs for second-order differential inclusions (in particular, differential equations) that are based on Leray-Schauder alternative.