A generalized mountain pass lemma with a closed subset for locally Lipschitz functionals

Abstract

ABSTRACT The classical Mountain Pass Lemma of Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz has been studied, extended and modified in several directions. Notable examples would certainly include the generalization to locally Lipschitz functionals by K. C. Chang, analyzing the structure of the critical set in the mountain pass theorem in the works of Hofer, Pucci-Serrin and Tian, and the extension by Ghoussoub-Preiss to closed subsets in a Banach space with recent variations. In this paper, we utilize the generalized gradient of Clarke and Ekeland's variatonal principle to generalize the Ghoussoub-Preiss's Theorem in the setting of locally Lipschitz functionals. We give an application to periodic solutions of Hamiltonian systems.