Sobolev regularity for the Monge-Ampère equation, with application to the semigeostrophic equations (Q744540)

The article gives a survey on recent results on the Sobolev regularity of viscosity solutions to the Monge--Ampère equation \[ \det(D^2u) = f \] with Dirichlet boundary conditions. It follows from results by L.~Caffarelli that convex solutions of the Monge--Ampère equation are locally in \(C^{1,\alpha}\) provided the right hand side is bounded and strictly positive. Moreover, it is known that for every \(p > 1\) there exists \(\delta > 0\) such that \(u \in W_{\mathrm{loc}}^{2,p}(\Omega)\) for all \(f\) satisfying \(\| f - 1 \| \leq \delta\). However, counterexamples by \textit{X.-J. Wang} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 123, No. 3, 841--845 (1995; Zbl 0822.35054)] show that for any \(p > 1\) there exist bounded and strictly positive right hand sides such that \(u \not\in W_{\mathrm{loc}}^{2,p}(\Omega)\). Nevertheless, it follows from results by the author of this article and his coauthors that in this situation one still has \(u \in W_{\mathrm{loc}}^{2,1+\varepsilon}(\Omega)\) for some sufficiently small \(\varepsilon > 0\). The main part of the article gives a self-contained non-technical overview over the techniques and arguments used to establish this inner regularity of the solutions. Moreover, as a motivation for such Sobolev regularity results the mathematical treatment of the semigeostrophic equations is presented. Indeed, for this system it is easier to study a dual problem for which the existence of weak solutions can be established. To obtain a distributional solution of the original semigeostrophic equation one has to retransform the obtained weak solution which involves terms that can only be given sense provided the second derivatives of the solution of an associated Monge--Ampère equation lie in \(L^1_{\mathrm{loc}}(\Omega)\), i.e.\ the solution has \(W_{\mathrm{loc}}^{2,1}(\Omega)\) regularity.