In this paper we investigate the existence of positive solutions for nonlinear elliptic problems driven by the $p$-Laplacian with a nonsmooth potential (hemivariational inequality). Under asymptotic conditions that make the Euler functional indefinite and incorporate in our framework the asymptotically linear problems, using a variational approach based on nonsmooth critical point theory, we obtain positive smooth solutions. Our analysis also leads naturally to multiplicity results.

In this paper we study nonlinear elliptic problems of Neumann type driven by the $p$-Laplacian differential operator. We look for situations guaranteeing the existence of multiple solutions. First we study problems which are strongly resonant at infinity at the first (zero) eigenvalue. We prove five multiplicity results, four for problems with nonsmooth potential and one for problems with a ${{C}^{1}}$-potential. In the last part, for nonsmooth problems in which the potential eventually exhibits a strict super-$p$-growth under a symmetry condition, we prove the existence of infinitely many pairs of nontrivial solutions. Our approach is variational based on the critical point theory for nonsmooth functionals. Also we present some results concerning the first two elements of the spectrum of the negative $p$-Laplacian with Neumann boundary condition.

In this paper we complete two tasks. First we extend the nonsmooth critical point theory of Chang to the case where the energy functional satisfies only the weaker nonsmooth Cerami condition and we also relax the boundary conditions. Then we study semilinear and quasilinear equations (involving the p-Laplacian). Using a variational approach we establish the existence of one and of multiple solutions. In simple existence theorems, we allow the right hand side to be discontinuous. In that case in order to have an existence theory, we pass to a multivalued approximation of the original problem by, roughly speaking, filling in the gaps at the discontinuity points.