The most important open problem in monotone operator theory concerns the maximal monotonicity of the sum of two maximally monotone operators provided that the classical Rockafellar’s constraint qualification holds. In this paper, we establish the maximal monotonicity of $\def \xmlpi #1{}\def \mathsfbi #1{\boldsymbol {\mathsf {#1}}}\let \le =\leqslant \let \leq =\leqslant \let \ge =\geqslant \let \geq =\geqslant \def \Pr {\mathit {Pr}}\def \Fr {\mathit {Fr}}\def \Rey {\mathit {Re}}A+B$ provided that $A$ and $B$ are maximally monotone operators such that ${\rm star}({\rm dom}\ A)\cap {\rm int}\, {\rm dom}\, B\neq \varnothing $, and $A$ is of type (FPV). We show that when also ${\rm dom}\ A$ is convex, the sum operator $A+B$ is also of type (FPV). Our result generalizes and unifies several recent sum theorems.

Dirac structures are used as the underlying structure to mathematically formalizeport-Hamiltonian systems. This note approaches the Dirac structures forinfinite-dimensional systems using the theory of linear relations on Hilbert spaces.First, a kernel representation for a Dirac structure is proposed. The one-to-onecorrespondence between Dirac structures and unitary operators is revisited. Further, theproposed kernel representation and a scattering representation are constructively related.Several illustrative examples are also presented in the paper.