Identification of discontinuous parameters in double phase obstacle problems (Q2675196)

The authors study an inverse problem of identification of a discontinuous parameter and a discontinuous boundary datum to an elliptic inclusion problem. The main differential operator in the principal equation is of double phase type. Furthermore, the authors consider the combined effects of: \begin{itemize} \item[1.] a multivalued reaction term exhibiting dependence on the gradient; \item[2.] a multivalued boundary condition; \item[3.] an obstacle constraint. \end{itemize} A main result of the paper is to establish the nonemptiness, boundedness and closedness of weak solutions set to involved double phase problem. Hence, the authors' approach is based on a surjectivity theorem for multivalued mappings, together with the theory of nonsmooth analysis and the properties of the Steklov eigenvalue problem for the \(p\)-Laplacian. Another result of the paper is in designing a general framework setting to analyze the solvability of such inverse problems. In particular, the authors introduce certain parameter-to-solution-map to establish a continuous result of Kuratowski type.