English

The mountain pass theorem in terms of tangencies

Analysis of PDEs 2021-05-18 v1

Abstract

This paper addresses the Mountain Pass Theorem for locally Lipschitz functions on finite-dimensional vector spaces in terms of tangencies. Namely, let f ⁣:RnRf \colon \mathbb R^n \to \mathbb R be a locally Lipschitz function with a mountain pass geometry. Let c:=infγAmaxt[0,1]f(γ(t)),c := \inf_{\gamma \in \mathcal A}\max_{t\in[0,1]}f(\gamma(t)), where A\mathcal{A} is the set of all continuous paths joining xx^* to y.y^*. We show that either cc is a critical value of ff or cc is a tangency value at infinity of f.f. This reduces to the Mountain Pass Theorem of Ambrosetti and Rabinowitz in the case where the function ff is definable (such as, semi-algebraic) in an o-minimal structure.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2105.07138,
  title  = {The mountain pass theorem in terms of tangencies},
  author = {Si Tiep Dinh and Tien Son Pham},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.07138},
  year   = {2021}
}