A new relaxation space for obstacles (Q1417643)

The paper is concerned with minimization problems for a class of cost functionals \(F\colon X_\psi(\Omega)\to]-\infty,+\infty]\), where \(1<p<+\infty\), \[ X_\psi(\Omega)=\{g\colon\Omega\to[-\infty,+\infty] : g\text{ \(p\)-quasi upper semicontinuous},\;g\leq\psi\} \] is the class of the admissible obstacles, \(\Omega\) is a bounded open set, and \(\psi\) is a fixed continuous function in \(H^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\). For example, if \(f\in L^q(\Omega)\), it can be \(F(g)=F(u_g)\), where \(u_g\) is the solution of \[ \min\left\{{1\over p}\int_\Omega | \nabla u| ^p\,dx- \int_\Omega fu\,dx : u\in H^{1,p}_0(\Omega),\;u(x)\geq g(x)\text{ for a.e. }x\in\Omega\right\}. \] In particular, the minimization problem for \(F\) on \(X_\psi(\Omega)\) is discussed in a general setting when the functionals depend on the level sets of \(g\). A precise interpretation of the optimum is given by means of the introduction of a suitable distance on \(X_\psi(\Omega)\), which is topologically equivalent to \(\Gamma\)-convergence, and of the description of the completion of \(X_\psi(\Omega)\) with respect to such metric.