Multiplicative perturbation of nonlinear m-accretive operators

Criteria are obtained for when an accretive product (i.e., composition) BA of nonlinear m-accretive operators A and B in a Banach space X will be itself m-accretive; and, in particular, when a monotone product of two maximal monotone operators in a Hilbert space will be maximal monotone. This extends the theory of multiplicative perturbation of infinitesimal generators of contraction semigroups to the nonlinear case. Also obtained as a biproduct are existence theorems for certain Hammerstein integral equations.