The obstacle problem for a class of degenerate fully nonlinear operators (Q2039506)

Summary: We study the obstacle problem for fully nonlinear elliptic operators with an anisotropic degeneracy on the gradient: \[ \begin{cases} \min\left\{f-|Du|^\gamma F(D^2u),u-\phi\right\} &= 0 \quad \text{in } \Omega,\\ u & = g \quad \text{on } \partial \Omega, \end{cases}\] for some degeneracy parameter \(\gamma\geq 0\), uniformly elliptic operator \(F\), bounded source term \(f\), and suitably smooth obstacle \(\phi\) and boundary datum \(g\). We obtain existence/uniqueness of solutions and prove sharp regularity estimates at the free boundary points, namely \(\partial\{u>\phi\} \cap \Omega \). In particular, for the homogeneous case \((f\equiv0)\) we get that solutions are \(C^{1,1}\) at free boundary points, in the sense that they detach from the obstacle in a quadratic fashion, thus beating the optimal regularity allowed for such degenerate operators. We also prove several non-degeneracy properties of solutions and partial results regarding the free boundary. These are the first results for obstacle problems driven by degenerate type operators in non-divergence form and they are a novelty even for the simpler prototype given by an operator of the form \(\mathcal{G}[u] = |Du|^\gamma\Delta u\), with \(\gamma >0\) and \(f \equiv 1\).