Regularity of radial minimizers of reaction equations involving the p-Laplacian

We consider semi-stable, radially symmetric, and decreasing solutions of  − Δ _p u = g(u) in the unit ball of , where p > 1, Δ _p is the p-Laplace operator, and g is a locally Lipschitz function. For this class of radial solutions, which includes local minimizers, we establish pointwise, L ^q , and W ^1,q estimates which are optimal and do not depend on the specific nonlinearity g. Among other results, we prove that every radially decreasing and semi-stable solution u belonging to W ^1,p (B ₁) is bounded whenever n < p + 4p/(p − 1). Under standard assumptions on the nonlinearity g(u) = λf (u), where λ > 0 is a parameter, it is proved that the corresponding extremal solution u ^* is semi-stable, and hence, it enjoys the regularity stated in our main result.