Cut locus on compact manifolds and uniform semiconcavity estimates for a variational inequality

Abstract

We study a family of gradient obstacle problems on a compact Riemannian manifold. We prove that the solutions of these free boundary problems are uniformly semiconcave and, as a consequence, we obtain some fine convergence results for the solutions and their free boundaries. Precisely, we show that the elastic and the $\lambda$-elastic sets of the solutions Hausdorff converge to the cut locus and the $\lambda$-cut locus of the manifold.