Using the dual pairing, a monotone operator satisfies for all . It is a strongly monotone operator if some givesA nonlinear coercive operator with respect to satisfies as in .
Strong monotonicity, with , givesAfter division, the lower bound is , proving coercivity. Reflexivity and separability are not needed for this particular estimate.
Let be a convex set in a real Banach space, and let be a strongly monotone operator. If both satisfy the displayed variational inequality, testing with and respectively and adding yields . Strong monotonicity gives , hence . This proves uniqueness whenever a solution exists.