Introduction:
Variational methods for C^1- functions f in a real Banach space X are by now well established. Applications - chiefly to differential equations - are countless, and their number always increases. However, many variational problems, which arise in the modelling of important mechanical and engineering questions, naturally lead to consider functionals lacking the smoothness properties usually required for the use of classical results. As an example, we only mention both variational inequalities and elliptic equations with discontinuous nonlinearities. Concerning the first case, the indicator function of some convex closed subset of X must appear in the expression of f; for the second case, f turns out to be locally Lipschitz continuous at most. The main purpose of this special session is to gather researchers interested in non-smooth variational methods and applications. So, in particular, contributions to the followings topics are very welcome.
1) Critical point theory for non-differentiable functionals.
2) Variational, hemivariational, and variational-hemivariational inequalities.
3) Differential equations with possibly discontinuous nonlinearities.
4) Differential inclusions.
5) Non-smooth analysis. |