A fully nonlinear degenerate free transmission problem

Abstract

We study a free transmission problem driven by degenerate fully nonlinear operators. Our first result concerns the existence of solutions to the associated Dirichlet problem. By framing the equation in the context of viscosity inequalities, we produce optimal regularity results for viscosity solutions and certain strong solutions to the problem. Our findings include regularity in $C^{1,\alpha }$ spaces, and an explicit characterization of $\alpha$ in terms of the degeneracy rates. We argue by perturbation methods, relating our problem to a homogeneous, fully nonlinear uniformly elliptic equation.

The present version fixes a mistake in the proof of Theorem 1. The paper has also been slightly reorganized