Extremal solutions for a class of unilateral problems. (Q699309)

Fixed point theorems for monotone increasing operators in ordered Banach spaces are an important tool in the study of elliptic and parabolic differential equations. The existence and approximation of solutions for both continuous and discontinuous equations can be investigated with this tool [\textit{S. Heikikilä} and \textit{V. Lakshmikantham}, ``Monotone iterative techniques for discontinuous nonlinear differential equations'' (1994; Zbl 0804.34001)]. In this paper, the authors prove the existence of extremal solutions for a class of differential variational inequalities using a fixed point theorem for monotone increasing operators in ordered spaces. Under certain assumptions, the variational inequality under consideration is reduced to the problem of finding fixed points for monotone increasing operators in ordered Banach spaces. The results of this paper are related with the recent papers of \textit{V. K. Le} [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 252, 65--90 (2000; Zbl 0980.49011)] and \textit{P. Drábek} and \textit{J. Hernández} [Nonlinear Anal., Theory Methods. Appl. 44A, 189--204 (2001; Zbl 0991.35035)].