Sharp regularity for evolutionary obstacle problems, interpolative geometries and removable sets (Q395255)

The paper under review deals with the regularity of an obstacle problem for the parabolic operator \(-Hu=u_t-\text{div}\left(a(Du)\right)\), where the elliptic part \(\text{div}\left(a(Du)\right)\) satisfies the standard requirements of degenerate operators. The prototype of such operators is the \(p\)-Laplacian. Let \(\mathcal{O}\) be a cylindrical domain in \(\mathbb{R}^n \times \mathbb{R}_+\) and \(\psi\), \(b\) be continuous functions on \(\bar{\mathcal{O}} \), the closure of \(\mathcal{O}\). Here, \(\psi\) is the obstacle, \(b\) the boundary condition, and it is assumed that \(b\geq \psi \) on the parabolic boundary \(\partial_p\mathcal{O} \). A function \(u\) is a solution to the obstacle problem if it satisfies the following: \newline (i) \( u\) is continuous in \( \bar{\mathcal{O}}\), \(u\geq\psi\) in \( \mathcal{O}\) and \( u=b\) on \(\partial_p\mathcal{O}\);\newline (ii) \( u\) is a weak supersolution in \( \mathcal{O}\);\newline (iii) \( u \) is a weak solution in \(\mathcal{O}\cap\{u>\psi\}\). The main result of the paper asserts that solutions have exactly the same degree of regularity as the obstacle \(\psi\) and the boundary condition \(b\). Furthermore, there is no assumption on the time derivative of the obstacle, a condition which was assumed in previous papers (see e.g. [\textit{V. Bögelein} et al., J. Reine Angew. Math. 650 107--16 (2011; Zbl 1218.35088)]). The regularity is expressed in terms of oscillations with respect to an arbitrary modulus of continuity function. The main tool is called \textit{intrinsic geometry}, which is a combination of a certain change of variables with rescaling of parabolic cylinders. The authors extend this method and then prove the regularity of the obstacle problem via a blow-up technique. Except for regularity, they obtain conditions for removable singularities in terms of cylindrical Hausdorff measures.