No label defined (Q4944347)

The paper deals with differential inclusions of the form \[ u'(t)\in F\bigl(u(t)\bigr) \leqno (1) \] and with differential evolution inclusions of the form \[ u'(t)+Au(t)\in F\bigl(u(t)\bigr) \leqno (2) \] both in the finite and in the infinite dimensional case. The study of (1) and (2) is carried on in the framework of De Giorgi's minimizing movements, namely a time discretization scheme based on recursive minimizations which covers in a unified framework several classical methods. The authors study a broad class of problems of the form (1), (2), proving existence of (generalized) minimizing movements and finding conditions which ensure that any minimizing movement is a solution of the Cauchy problem. Moreover, in some situations they prove that any solution of the Cauchy problem can be built in this way. The case of steepest descent curves \(u'(t)=-\partial f\bigl(u(t)\bigr)\) is studied in more detail; here the subdifferential is understood in the sense of Clarke.