On the measure and the structure of the free boundary of the lower dimensional obstacle problem (Q1783948)

The authors deal with three properties of a solution to the following nonlinear thin obstacle problem. \[ \left\{\begin{aligned} &u(x',0)\geq 0\;\text{ for }(x',0)\in B'_R,\\ &u(x',x_{n+1})=u(x',-x_{n+1})\; \text{ for }x=(x',x_{n+1})\in B_R,\\ &\text{div}(|x_{n+1}|^a\nabla u(x))=0\;\text{ for }x\in B_R\setminus\{(x',0):u(x',0)=0\},\\ &\text{div}(|x_{n+1}|^a\nabla u(x))\leq 0\;\text{ in the sense of distribution in }B_R,\\ &u(x)=g(x)\;\text{ for }x\in\partial B_R, \end{aligned}\right.\leqno{(*)_a} \] \(g\in\mathcal{A}_R=\{v\in H^1(B_R,|x_{n+1}|^a\mathcal{L}^{n+1}):v(x',x_{n+1})=v(x',-x_{n+1})\text{ and }v(x',0)\geq 0\}\) such that \(\mathcal{L}^{n+1}\) is the Lebesgue measure, \(B_R,B'_R\) are open balls of radius \(R\) in \(\mathbb R^{n+1}\) and \(\mathbb R^n\), respectively, \(\partial B_R\) represents the boundary of \(B_R\), and \(|a|<1\). The particular case \((*)_0\) provides the Signorini problem in elasticity. Let \(\Lambda(u)=\{(x',0)\in B'_R:u(x',0)=0\}\) be the \textit{coincidence set} and we denote by \(\Gamma(u)\) the \textit{free boundary} of \(\Lambda(u)\), i.e., the topological boundary of \(\Lambda(u)\). The first property states that the free boundary of a solution \(u\) of \((*)_a\) has locally finite \((n-1)\)-dimensional Minkowski content, i.e., for \(K\) a relative compact in \(B'_1\), the Lebesgue measure of \(\mathcal{T}_r(K\cap \Gamma(u))\) is bounded, up to a multiplicative constant relying on \(K\), by \(r^2\), where \(\mathcal{T}_r(E)=\text{dist}(\cdot,E)^{-1}(0,r)\subset \mathbb R^{n+1}\) such that \(E\) is a subset of \(\mathbb R^{n}\) (Theorem 1.1). The second property states that there exists \((M_i)_{i\in\mathbb N}\), a family comprised by at most countable \(C^1\)-regular \((n-1)\)-dimensional submanifolds in \(\mathbb R^{n+1}\), such that the \((n-1)\)-dimensional Hausdorff measure of the complement of \(\bigcup_{i\in\mathbb N} M_i\) in the free boundary of a solution of \((*)_a\) is zero (Theorem 1.2). The third property focuses on the blow-up and the frequency of a solution of \((*)_a\) at a point of the free boundary (Theorem 1.3). Thanks to a counter-example, the authors declared in [Arch. Ration. Mech. Anal. 230, No. 2, 783--784 (2018; Zbl 1466.35376)] that Proposition 8.2, regarding the classification of homogeneous solutions, is not correct.