Smoothing Newton method for operator equations in Banach spaces (Q949373)

The authors discuss the solution of nonsmooth operator equations in Banach spaces using a smoothing Newton type method. To construct the smoothing Newton method for solving a nonsmooth operator equation a smooth function to approximate the nonsmooth mapping from the left hand side of the nonsmooth equation is considered. The concepts of semismooth and generalized differential of a mapping are used, and the Jacobian consistency property is introduced. An algorithm of the smoothing Newton method is proposed and the global and superlinear convergence properties are proved, provided that the Jacobian consistency property is satisfied. As an application, the smoothing Newton method is used to solve a distributed optimal control problem for an elliptic partial differential equation with upper bounds on control.