An unstable elliptic free boundary problem arising in solid combustion (Q868720)

The elliptic problem \[ \Delta u=-\chi_{\{u>0\}} \] is unstable in the sense that it corresponds to the classical obstacle problem with inverted sign. It is related to the travelling wave problem for the combustion of a solid with ignition temperature. The main results of the paper are: (i) the existence of a maximal and a minimal solution, (ii) the analyticity of a local minimizer of the energy functional out of the free boundary \(\partial \{u>0\}\) which is also locally analytic, (iii) the analysis of the possible singular points of the free boundary and of the behaviour of \(u\) near them. The two-dimensional case is studied in particular deriving some interesting information on the structure of the free boundary.