On the structure of the set of solutions of nonlinear equations

Let T be a mapping from a subset of a Banach space X into a Banach space Y. The present paper investigates the nature of the set of solutions of the equation T(x) = y for a given y E Y, i.e. when T-l(y) # 0 ? What are the topological properties of T-l(y)? A prototype for an answer to these questions is given by Peano existence theorem on the connectedness of the set of solutions of an ordinary differential equation in the real case. In its general setting, this problem was first attacked by Aronszajn [l] and Stampacchia [l 11; recently, by Browder-Gupta [5], Vidossich [12] and, above all, Browder [3, Sec. 51 who gives several interesting results in an excellent treatment. Customary, the str…