Monotonicity formulas for obstacle problems with Lipschitz coefficients (Q745559)

In this interesting paper, the authors study the regularity of the free boundary of solutions to classical obstacle-type problems with energies consisting of a quadratic form with Lipschitz coefficients and a Hölder-continuous linear term. Let \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^n\) be a smooth, bounded and open set, \(A\in \text{Lip}(\Omega, \mathbb{R}^{n\times n})\) a symmetric and uniformly elliptic matrix-valued function, and \(f\in C^{0,\alpha}(\Omega)\), for some \(0<\alpha\leq 1\), such that \(0<c_0\leq f\). The authors consider the minimizer \(u\) of the energy \[ \mathcal{E}(v):=\int_{\Omega}\left(\langle A(x)\nabla v(x),\nabla v(x)\rangle +2f(x)v(x)\right)dx \] among the functions \[ v\in \mathcal{K}:=\{v\in H^1(\Omega) \;: \;v\geq 0 \;\mathcal{L}^n-\text{a.e. on } \Omega, \;\text{tr}(v)=g \text{ on } \partial\Omega\}, \] where \(0\leq g\in H^{1/2}(\partial\Omega).\) The main result of the paper states that \(u\in C^{1,\gamma}_{\text{loc}}(\Omega)\) for every \(\gamma\in (0,1)\). Moreover, \(\partial\{u=0\}\cap\Omega=\text{Reg}(u)\cup \text{Sing}(u)\), where \(\text{Reg}(u)\cap \text{Sing}(u)=\emptyset\), and {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize}\item[(1)] \(\text{Reg}(u)\) is relatively open in \(\partial\{u=0\}\) and for every \(x_0\in \text{Reg}(u)\) there exist \(r>0, \beta\in (0,1)\) such that \(\text{Reg}(u)\cap B_r(x_0)\) is a \(C^{1,\beta}\) submanifold of dimension \(n-1\). \item [(2)] \(\text{Sing}(u)=\cup_{k=0}^{n-1}S_k\), where \(S_k\) is contained in the union of at most countably many \(C^1\) submanifolds of dimension \(k\). \end{itemize}} The main tools used are new quasi-monotonicities of Weiss and Monneau type combined with Weiss' epiperimetric inequality, which allow the authors to follow the approaches in [\textit{L. A. Caffarelli}, J. Fourier Anal. Appl. 4, No. 4--5, 383--402 (1998; Zbl 0928.49030)], [\textit{R. Monneau}, J. Geom. Anal. 13, No. 2, 337--367 (2003; Zbl 1041.35093)] and [\textit{G. S. Weiss}, Invent. Math. 138, No. 1, 23--50 (1999; Zbl 0940.35102)] to analyze the regularity of free boundary points.