Perturbation and bifurcation in a free boundary problem

We study the equation with a discontinuous nonlinearity: ?Δu = λH(u ? 1) (H is Heaviside's unit function) in a square subject to various boundary conditions. We expect to find a curve dividing the harmonic (Δu = 0) region from the superharmonic (Δu = ?λ) region, defined by the equation u(x, y) = 1. This curve is called the free boundary since its location is determined by the solution to the problem. We use the implicit function theorem to study the effect of perturbation of the boundary conditions on known families of solutions. This justifies rigorously a formal scheme derived previously by Fleishman and Mahar. Our method also discovers bifurcations from previously known solution families.