"Densities" and maximal monotonicity I

Abstract

We discuss "Banach SN spaces", which include Hilbert spaces, negative Hilbert spaces, and the product of any real Banach space with its dual. We introduce "L-positive" sets, which generalize monotone multifunctions from a Banach space into its dual. We introduce the concepts of "$r_L$-density" and its specialization "quasidensity": the closed quasidense monotone multifunctions from a Banach space into its dual form a (generally) strict subset of the maximally monotone ones, though all surjective maximally monotone and all maximally monotone multifunctions on a reflexive space are quasidense. We give a sum theorem and a parallel sum theorem for closed monotone quasidense multifunctions under very general constraint conditions. That is to say, quasidensity obeys a very nice calculus rule. We give a short proof that the subdifferential of a proper convex lower semicontinuous function on a Banach space is quasidense, and deduce generalizations of the Brezis-Browder theorem on linear relations to non reflexive Banach spaces. We also prove that any closed monotone quasidense multifunction has a number of other very desirable properties. This version differs from the previous version in the removal of Sections 13-16, part of Section 17, and Section 18.