Enlargements and sums of monotone operators (Q5957792)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, the concept of \(\varepsilon\)-enlargement of a maximal monotone operator is presented and studied. Using this notion, it is shown that if A is a maximal monotone operator with open domain, then by the enlargements of A one can obtain an unique maximal monotone operator, on the same domain, containing A. Also, for the class of (D)-type monotone operators introduced by \textit{J.-P. Gossez} [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 34, 371--395 (1971; Zbl 0228.47040)], a Bronsted-Rockafellar type theorem is proved. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEThe second part of the paper is devoted to the concept of extended sum and its connections with the pointwise sum of two maximal monotone operators. As an example, it is proved that the subdifferential of the sum of two proper convex lower semicontinuous functions is the extended sum of their subdifferentials.