On the regularity of the free boundary in the p-Laplacian obstacle problem

Abstract: We study the regularity of the free boundary in the obstacle for the

p

-Laplacian,

in

O m e g a s u b s e t m a t h b b R^{n}

. Here,

, and

p i n (1, 2) c u p (2, i n f t y)

. Near those free boundary points where

a b l a v a r p h i e q 0

, the operator

D e l t a_{p}

is uniformly elliptic and smooth, and hence the free boundary is well understood. However, when

a b l a v a r p h i = 0

then

D e l t a_{p}

is singular or degenerate, and nothing was known about the regularity of the free boundary at those points. Here we study the regularity of the free boundary where

a b l a v a r p h i = 0

. On the one hand, for every

p e q 2

we construct explicit global

2

-homogeneous solutions to the

p

-Laplacian obstacle problem whose free boundaries have a corner at the origin. In particular, we show that the free boundary is in general not

C^{1}

at points where

a b l a v a r p h i = 0

. On the other hand, under the "concavity" assumption

| a b l a v a r p h i |^{2 - p} D e l t a_{p} v a r p h i < 0

, we show the free boundary is countably

(n - 1)

-rectifiable and we prove a nondegeneracy property for

u

at all free boundary points.

Review text

The paper is focused on the obstacle problem \(\min\{-\Delta_pu,u-\varphi\}=0\) in \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^n\) for the \(p\)-Laplacian operator \(\Delta_pu=\operatorname{div} (|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)\), \(1<p<\infty\), where \(\Omega\) is a bounded smooth domain, and \(\varphi\) and \(g\) are given smooth functions. The authors study the regularity of the free boundary near those free boundary points \(x_0\in\partial\{u>\varphi\}\) at which \(\nabla \varphi(x_0)=0\). For \(p\not=2\) and \(\varphi(x)=-|x|^2\) in \(\mathbb{R}^2\), they construct global \(2\)-homogeneous solutions for the problem above with free boundaries having a corner at the origin. Then, under a concavity assumption for \(\varphi\), they prove that the free boundary is countably \((n-1)\) rectifiable, and present a nondegeneracy property for \(u\) at all free boundary points.

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