Piecewise nonlinear materials and Monotonicity Principle

This paper deals with the Monotonicity Principle (MP) for nonlinear materials with piecewise growth exponent. The results obtained are relevant because they enable the use of a fast imaging method based on MP, applied to a wide class of problems with two or more materials, at least one of which is nonlinear. The treatment is very general and makes it possible to model a wide range of practical configurations such as superconducting (SC), perfect electrical conducting (PEC) or perfect electrical insulating (PEI) materials. A key role is played by the average Dirichlet-to-Neumann operator, introduced in Corbo Esposito et al (2021 Inverse Problems 37 045012), where the MP for a single type of nonlinearity was treated. Realistic numerical examples confirm the theoretical findings.