A variational approach to symmetry, monotonicity, and comparison for doubly-nonlinear equations

Abstract: We advance a variational method to prove qualitative properties such as symmetries, monotonicity, upper and lower bounds, sign properties, and comparison principles for a large class of doubly-nonlinear evolutionary problems including gradient flows, some nonlocal problems, and systems of nonlinear parabolic equations. Our method is based on the so-called Weighted-Energy-Dissipation (WED) variational approach. This consists in defining a global parameter-dependent functional over entire trajectories and proving that its minimizers converge to solutions to the target problem as the parameter goes to zero. Qualitative properties and comparison principles can be easily proved for minimizers of the WED functional and, by passing to the limit, for the limiting problem. Several applications of the abstract results to systems of nonlinear PDEs and to fractional/nonlocal problems are presented. Eventually, we present some extensions of this approach in order to deal with rate-independent systems and hyperbolic problems.