Quasilinear equations with natural growth in the gradients in spaces of Sobolev multipliers

We study the existence problem for a class of nonlinear elliptic equations whose prototype is of the form \(-\Delta _p u = |\nabla u|^p + \sigma \) in a bounded domain \(\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^n\). Here \(\Delta _p\), \(p>1\), is the standard p-Laplacian operator defined by \(\Delta _p u=\mathrm{div}\, (|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)\), and the datum \(\sigma \) is a signed distribution in \(\Omega \). The class of solutions that we are interested in consists of functions \(u\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega )\) such that \(|\nabla u|\in M(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\rightarrow L^p(\Omega ))\), a space pointwise Sobolev multipliers consisting of functions \(f\in L^{p}(\Omega )\) such that

$$\begin{aligned} \int _{\Omega } |f|^{p} |\varphi |^p dx \le C \int _{\Omega } (|\nabla \varphi |^p + |\varphi |^p) dx \quad \forall \varphi \in C^\infty (\Omega ), \end{aligned}$$

for some \(C>0\). This is a natural class of solutions at least when the distribution \(\sigma \) is nonnegative and compactly supported in \(\Omega \). We show essentially that, with only a gap in the smallness constants, the above equation has a solution in this class if and only if one can write \(\sigma =\mathrm{div}\, F\) for a vector field F such that \(|F|^{\frac{1}{p-1}}\in M(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\rightarrow L^p(\Omega ))\). As an important application, via the exponential transformation \(u\mapsto v=e^{\frac{u}{p-1}}\), we obtain an existence result for the quasilinear equation of Schrödinger type \(-\Delta _p v = \sigma \, v^{p-1}\), \(v\ge 0\) in \(\Omega \), and \(v=1\) on \(\partial \Omega \), which is interesting in its own right.

     

On the <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-Laplacian with Robin boundary conditions and boundary trace theorems

Let \(\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^\nu \), \(\nu \ge 2\), be a \(C^{1,1}\) domain whose boundary \(\partial \Omega \) is either compact or behaves suitably at infinity. For \(p\in (1,\infty )\) and \(\alpha >0\), define

$$\begin{aligned} \Lambda (\Omega ,p,\alpha ):=\inf _{\begin{array}{c} u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\\ u\not \equiv 0 \end{array}}\dfrac{\displaystyle \int _\Omega |\nabla u|^p \mathrm {d} x - \alpha \displaystyle \int _{\partial \Omega } |u|^p\mathrm {d}\sigma }{\displaystyle \int _\Omega |u|^p\mathrm {d} x}, \end{aligned}$$

where \(\mathrm {d}\sigma \) is the surface measure on \(\partial \Omega \). We show the asymptotics

$$\begin{aligned} \Lambda (\Omega ,p,\alpha )=-(p-1)\alpha ^{\frac{p}{p-1}} - (\nu -1)H_\mathrm {max}\, \alpha + o(\alpha ), \quad \alpha \rightarrow +\infty , \end{aligned}$$

where \(H_\mathrm {max}\) is the maximum mean curvature of \(\partial \Omega \). The asymptotic behavior of the associated minimizers is discussed as well. The estimate is then applied to the study of the best constant in a boundary trace theorem for expanding domains, to the norm estimate for extension operators and to related isoperimetric inequalities.

     

Mean curvature bounds and eigenvalues of Robin Laplacians

We consider the Laplacian with attractive Robin boundary conditions,

$$\begin{aligned} Q^\Omega _\alpha u=-\Delta u, \quad \dfrac{\partial u}{\partial n}=\alpha u \text { on } \partial \Omega , \end{aligned}$$

in a class of bounded smooth domains \(\Omega \in \mathbb {R}^\nu \); here \(n\) is the outward unit normal and \(\alpha >0\) is a constant. We show that for each \(j\in \mathbb {N}\) and \(\alpha \rightarrow +\infty \), the \(j\)th eigenvalue \(E_j(Q^\Omega _\alpha )\) has the asymptotics

$$\begin{aligned} E_j(Q^\Omega _\alpha )=-\alpha ^2 -(\nu -1)H_\mathrm {max}(\Omega )\,\alpha +{\mathcal O}(\alpha ^{2/3}), \end{aligned}$$

where \(H_\mathrm {max}(\Omega )\) is the maximum mean curvature at \(\partial \Omega \). The discussion of the reverse Faber-Krahn inequality gives rise to a new geometric problem concerning the minimization of \(H_\mathrm {max}\). In particular, we show that the ball is the strict minimizer of \(H_\mathrm {max}\) among the smooth star-shaped domains of a given volume, which leads to the following result: if \(B\) is a ball and \(\Omega \) is any other star-shaped smooth domain of the same volume, then for any fixed \(j\in \mathbb {N}\) we have \(E_j(Q^B_\alpha )>E_j(Q^\Omega _\alpha )\) for large \(\alpha \). An open question concerning a larger class of domains is formulated.

     

Infiltration Equation with Degeneracy on the Boundary

This paper is mainly about the infiltration equation

$$ {u_{t}}= \operatorname{div} \bigl(a(x)|u|^{\alpha }{ \vert { \nabla u} \vert ^{p-2}}\nabla u\bigr),\quad (x,t) \in \Omega \times (0,T), $$

where \(p>1\), \(\alpha >0\), \(a(x)\in C^{1}(\overline{\Omega })\), \(a(x)\geq 0\) with \(a(x)|_{x\in \partial \Omega }=0\). If there is a constant \(\beta \) such that \(\int_{\Omega }a^{-\beta }(x)dx\leq c\), \(p>1+\frac{1}{\beta }\), then the weak solution is smooth enough to define the trace on the boundary, the stability of the weak solutions can be proved as usual. Meanwhile, if for any \(\beta >\frac{1}{p-1}\), \(\int_{\Omega }a^{-\beta }(x)dxdt=\infty \), then the weak solution lacks the regularity to define the trace on the boundary. The main innovation of this paper is to introduce a new kind of the weak solutions. By these new definitions of the weak solutions, one can study the stability of the weak solutions without any boundary value condition.

     

Multiple positive solutions of the stationary Keller–Segel system

We consider the stationary Keller–Segel equation

$$\begin{aligned} {\left\{ \begin{array}{ll} -\Delta v+v=\lambda e^v, \quad v>0 \quad &{} \text {in }\Omega ,\\ \partial _\nu v=0 &{}\text {on } \partial \Omega , \end{array}\right. } \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \) is a ball. In the regime \(\lambda \rightarrow 0\), we study the radial bifurcations and we construct radial solutions by a gluing variational method. For any given \(n\in \mathbb {N}_0\), we build a solution having multiple layers at \(r_1,\ldots ,r_n\) by which we mean that the solutions concentrate on the spheres of radii \(r_i\) as \(\lambda \rightarrow 0\) (for all \(i=1,\ldots ,n\)). A remarkable fact is that, in opposition to previous known results, the layers of the solutions do not accumulate to the boundary of \(\Omega \) as \(\lambda \rightarrow 0\). Instead they satisfy an optimal partition problem in the limit.

     

Eigenvalue Counting Function for Robin Laplacians on Conical Domains

We study the discrete spectrum of the Robin Laplacian \(Q^{\Omega }_\alpha \) in \(L^2(\Omega )\), \(u\mapsto -\Delta u, \quad D_n u=\alpha u \text { on }\partial \Omega \), where \(D_n\) is the outer unit normal derivative and \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb {R}}^{3}\) is a conical domain with a regular cross-section \(\Theta \subset {\mathbb {S}}^2\), n is the outer unit normal, and \(\alpha >0\) is a fixed constant. It is known from previous papers that the bottom of the essential spectrum of \(Q^{\Omega }_\alpha \) is \(-\alpha ^2\) and that the finiteness of the discrete spectrum depends on the geometry of the cross-section. We show that the accumulation of the discrete spectrum of \(Q^\Omega _\alpha \) is determined by the discrete spectrum of an effective Hamiltonian defined on the boundary and far from the origin. By studying this model operator, we prove that the number of eigenvalues of \(Q^{\Omega }_\alpha \) in \((-\infty ,-\alpha ^2-\lambda )\), with \(\lambda >0\), behaves for \(\lambda \rightarrow 0\) as

$$\begin{aligned} \dfrac{\alpha ^2}{8\pi \lambda } \int _{\partial \Theta } \kappa _+(s)^2\mathrm {d}s +o\left( \frac{1}{\lambda }\right) , \end{aligned}$$

where \(\kappa _+\) is the positive part of the geodesic curvature of the cross-section boundary.

     

Global $$C^{1,\al pha }$$ regularity and e xistence of multi ple solutions for singular p( x)-La placian equations

In this paper we study the following singular p(x)-Laplacian problem

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{l@{\quad }l} - \text{ div } \left( |\nabla u|^{p(x)-2} \nabla u\right) =\frac{ \lambda }{u^{\beta (x)}}+u^{q(x)}, &{} \text{ in }\quad \Omega , \\ u>0, &{} \text{ in }\quad \Omega , \\ u=0, &{} \text{ on }\quad \partial \Omega , \end{array}\right. \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb {R}^N\), \(N\ge 2\), with smooth boundary \(\partial \Omega \), \(\beta \in C^1(\bar{\Omega })\) with \( 0< \beta (x) <1\), \(p\in C^1(\bar{\Omega })\), \(q \in C(\bar{\Omega })\) with \(p(x)>1\), \(p(x)< q(x) +1 <p^*(x)\) for \(x \in \bar{\Omega }\), where \( p^*(x)= \frac{Np(x)}{N-p(x)} \) for \(p(x) <N\) and \( p^*(x)= \infty \) for \( p(x) \ge N\). We establish \(C^{1,\alpha }\) regularity of weak solutions of the problem and strong comparison principle. Based on these two results, we prove the existence of multiple (at least two) positive solutions for a certain range of \(\lambda \).

     

On one-dimensional superlinear indefinite problems involving the $$\phi $$-Laplacian

Let \(\Omega := ( a,b ) \subset \mathbb {R}\), \(m\in L^{1} ( \Omega ) \) and \(\phi :\mathbb {R\rightarrow R}\) be an odd increasing homeomorphism. We consider the existence of positive solutions for problems of the form

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array} [c]{ll} -\phi ( u^{\prime } ) ^{\prime }=m ( x ) f ( u) &{}\quad \text {in } \Omega ,\\ u=0 &{}\quad \text {on } \partial \Omega , \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

where \(f: [ 0,\infty ) \rightarrow [ 0,\infty ) \) is a continuous function which is, roughly speaking, superlinear with respect to \(\phi \). Our approach combines the Guo-Krasnoselski? fixed-point theorem with some estimates on related nonlinear problems. We mention that our results are new even in the case \(m\ge 0\).

     

Sign-changing solutions to a partially periodic nonlinear Schrödinger equation in domains with unbounded boundary

We consider the problem

$$\begin{aligned} -\Delta u+\left( V_{\infty }+V(x)\right) u=|u|^{p-2}u,\quad u\in H_{0} ^{1}(\Omega ), \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \) is either \(\mathbb {R}^{N}\) or a smooth domain in \(\mathbb {R} ^{N}\) with unbounded boundary, \(N\ge 3,\) \(V_{\infty }>0,\) \(V\in \mathcal {C} ^{0}(\mathbb {R}^{N}),\) \(\inf _{\mathbb {R}^{N}}V>-V_{\infty }\) and \(2<p<\frac{2N}{N-2}\). We assume V is periodic in the first m variables, and decays exponentially to zero in the remaining ones. We also assume that \(\Omega \) is periodic in the first m variables and has bounded complement in the other ones. Then, assuming that \(\Omega \) and V are invariant under some suitable group of symmetries on the last \(N-m\) coordinates of \(\mathbb {R}^{N}\), we establish existence and multiplicity of sign-changing solutions to this problem. We show that, under suitable assumptions, there is a combined effect of the number of periodic variables and the symmetries of the domain on the number of sign-changing solutions to this problem. This number is at least \(m+1\)

     

The identification problem for complex-valued Ornstein–Uhlenbeck operators in $$L^p(\mathbb {R}^d,\mathbb {C}^N)$$

In this paper we study perturbed Ornstein–Uhlenbeck operators

$$\begin{aligned} \left[ \mathcal {L}_{\infty } v\right] (x)=A\triangle v(x) + \left\langle Sx,\nabla v(x)\right\rangle -B v(x),\,x\in \mathbb {R}^d,\,d\geqslant 2, \end{aligned}$$

for simultaneously diagonalizable matrices \(A,B\in \mathbb {C}^{N,N}\). The unbounded drift term is defined by a skew-symmetric matrix \(S\in \mathbb {R}^{d,d}\). Differential operators of this form appear when investigating rotating waves in time-dependent reaction diffusion systems. We prove under certain conditions that the maximal domain \(\mathcal {D}(A_p)\) of the generator \(A_p\) belonging to the Ornstein–Uhlenbeck semigroup coincides with the domain of \(\mathcal {L}_{\infty }\) in \(L^p(\mathbb {R}^d,\mathbb {C}^N)\) given by

$$\begin{aligned} \mathcal {D}^p_{\mathrm {loc}}(\mathcal {L}_0)=\left\{ v\in W^{2,p}_{\mathrm {loc}}\cap L^p\mid A\triangle v + \left\langle S\cdot ,\nabla v\right\rangle \in L^p\right\} ,\,1<p<\infty . \end{aligned}$$

One key assumption is a new \(L^p\)-dissipativity condition

$$\begin{aligned} |z|^2\mathrm {Re}\,\left\langle w,Aw\right\rangle + (p-2)\mathrm {Re}\,\left\langle w,z\right\rangle \mathrm {Re}\,\left\langle z,Aw\right\rangle \geqslant \gamma _A |z|^2|w|^2\;\forall \,z,w\in \mathbb {C}^N \end{aligned}$$

for some \(\gamma _A>0\). The proof utilizes the following ingredients. First we show the closedness of \(\mathcal {L}_{\infty }\) in \(L^p\) and derive \(L^p\)-resolvent estimates for \(\mathcal {L}_{\infty }\). Then we prove that the Schwartz space is a core of \(A_p\) and apply an \(L^p\)-solvability result of the resolvent equation for \(A_p\). In addition, we derive \(W^{1,p}\)-resolvent estimates. Our results may be considered as extensions of earlier works by Metafune, Pallara and Vespri to the vector-valued complex case.

     

Uniform Bounds on the Relative Error in the Approximation of Upper Quantiles for Sums of Arbitrary Independent Random Variables

Fix any \(n\ge 1\). Let \(\tilde{X}_1,\ldots ,\tilde{X}_n\) be independent random variables. For each \(1\le j \le n\), \(\tilde{X}_j\) is transformed in a canonical manner into a random variable \(X_j\). The \(X_j\) inherit independence from the \(\tilde{X}_j\). Let \(s_y\) and \(s_y^*\) denote the upper \(\frac{1}{y}{\underline{\text{ th }}}\) quantile of \(S_n=\sum _{j=1}^nX_j\) and \(S^*_n=\sup _{1\le k\le n}S_k\), respectively. We construct a computable quantity \(\underline{Q}_y\) based on the marginal distributions of \(X_1,\ldots ,X_n\) to produce upper and lower bounds for \(s_y\) and \(s_y^*\). We prove that for \(y\ge 8\)

$$\begin{aligned} 6^{-1} \gamma _{3y/16}\underline{Q}_{3y/16}\le s^*_{y}\le \underline{Q}_y \end{aligned}$$

where

$$\begin{aligned} \gamma _y=\frac{1}{2w_y+1} \end{aligned}$$

and \(w_y\) is the unique solution of

$$\begin{aligned} \Big (\frac{w_y}{e\ln (\frac{y}{y-2})}\Big )^{w_y}=2y-4 \end{aligned}$$

for \(w_y>\ln (\frac{y}{y-2})\), and for \(y\ge 37\)

$$\begin{aligned} \frac{1}{9}\gamma _{u(y)}\underline{Q}_{u(y)}<s_y \le \underline{Q}_y \end{aligned}$$

where

$$\begin{aligned} u(y)=\frac{3y}{32} \left( 1+\sqrt{1-\frac{64}{3y}}\right) . \end{aligned}$$

The distribution of \(S_n\) is approximately centered around zero in that \(P(S_n\ge 0) \ge \frac{1}{18}\) and \(P(S_n\le 0)\ge \frac{1}{65}\). The results extend to \(n=\infty \) if and only if for some (hence all) \(a>0\)

$$\begin{aligned} \sum _{j=1}^{\infty }E\{(\tilde{X}_j-m_j)^2\wedge a^2\}<\infty . \end{aligned}$$

(1)

     

A Heroin Epidemic Model: Very General Non Linear Incidence,Treat-Age,and Global Stability

The aim of this work is to establish the existence of multi-peak solutions for the following class of quasilinear problems

$$ - \mbox{div} \bigl(\epsilon^{2}\phi\bigl(\epsilon|\nabla u|\bigr)\nabla u \bigr) + V(x)\phi\bigl(\vert u\vert\bigr)u = f(u)\quad\mbox{in } \mathbb{R}^{N}, $$

where \(\epsilon\) is a positive parameter, \(N\geq2\), \(V\), \(f\) are continuous functions satisfying some technical conditions and \(\phi\) is a \(C^{1}\)-function.

     

A note on regularity of solutions for degenerate singular elliptic boundary value problems

We prove the \(C^{1,\beta }\)-boundary regularity and a comparison principle for weak solutions of the problem

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} -\Delta _{p}u-\lambda \psi _{p}(u)=f(x)&{}\quad \text {in }\Omega , \\ u=0&{}\quad \text {on }\partial \Omega , \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb {R}^{N},N>1\ \)with smooth boundary \(\partial \Omega ,\ \ \Delta _{p}u=\mathrm{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u),\psi _{p}(u)=|u|^{p-2}u,p>1,\ \)and f is allowed to be unbounded.

     

$$L^{\infty }$$-norm and energy quantization for the planar Lane–Emden problem with large exponent

For any smooth bounded domain \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb {R}}^2\), we consider positive solutions to

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{lr}-\Delta u= u^p &{} \text{ in } \Omega \\ u=0 &{} \text{ on } \partial \Omega \end{array}\right. \end{aligned}$$

which satisfy the uniform energy bound

$$\begin{aligned}p\Vert \nabla u\Vert _{\infty }\le C\end{aligned}$$

for \(p>1\). We prove convergence to \(\sqrt{e}\) as \(p\rightarrow +\infty \) of the \(L^{\infty }\)-norm of any solution. We further deduce quantization of the energy to multiples of \(8\pi e\), thus completing the analysis performed in De Marchis et al. (J Fixed Point Theory Appl 19:889–916, 2017).

     

On a Fractional $$ p \& q$$ Laplacian Problem with Critical Sobolev–Hardy Exponents

We consider the following fractional \( p \& q\) Laplacian problem with critical Sobolev–Hardy exponents

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} (-\Delta )^{s}_{p} u + (-\Delta )^{s}_{q} u = \frac{|u|^{p^{*}_{s}(\alpha )-2}u}{|x|^{\alpha }}+ \lambda f(x, u) &{} \text{ in } \Omega \\ u=0 &{} \text{ in } \mathbb {R}^{N}{\setminus } \Omega , \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

where \(0<s<1\), \(1\le q<p<\frac{N}{s}\), \((-\Delta )^{s}_{r}\), with \(r\in \{p,q\}\), is the fractional r-Laplacian operator, \(\lambda \) is a positive parameter, \(\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^{N}\) is an open bounded domain with smooth boundary, \(0\le \alpha <sp\), and \(p^{*}_{s}(\alpha )=\frac{p(N-\alpha )}{N-sp}\) is the so-called Hardy–Sobolev critical exponent. Using concentration-compactness principle and the mountain pass lemma due to Kajikiya [23], we show the existence of infinitely many solutions which tend to be zero provided that \(\lambda \) belongs to a suitable range.

     

The effect of the domain topology on the number of solutions of fractional Laplace problems

In this paper we are concerned with the multiplicity of solutions for the following fractional Laplace problem

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} (-\Delta )^{s}u= \mu |u|^{q-2}u + |u|^{2^*_s-2}u &{}\quad \text{ in } \Omega \\ u=0 &{}\quad \text{ in } {\mathbb {R}}^n{\setminus } \Omega , \end{array}\right. \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb {R}}^n\) is an open bounded set with continuous boundary, \(n>2s\) with \(s\in (0,1),(-\Delta )^{s}\) is the fractional Laplacian operator, \(\mu \) is a positive real parameter, \(q\in [2, 2^*_s)\) and \(2^*_s=2n/(n-2s)\) is the fractional critical Sobolev exponent. Using the Lusternik–Schnirelman theory, we relate the number of nontrivial solutions of the problem under consideration with the topology of \(\Omega \). Precisely, we show that the problem has at least \(cat_{\Omega }(\Omega )\) nontrivial solutions, provided that \(q=2\) and \(n\geqslant 4s\) or \(q\in (2, 2^*_s)\) and \(n>2s(q+2)/q\), extending the validity of well-known results for the classical Laplace equation to the fractional nonlocal setting.

     

On Ambrosetti–Malchiodi–Ni conjecture on two-dimensional smooth bounded domains

We consider the problem

$$\begin{aligned} \epsilon ^2 \Delta u-V(y)u+u^p\,=\,0,\quad u>0\quad \text{ in }\quad \Omega , \quad \frac{\partial u}{\partial \nu }\,=\,0\quad \text{ on }\quad \partial \Omega , \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \) is a bounded domain in \({\mathbb {R}}^2\) with smooth boundary, the exponent p is greater than 1, \(\epsilon >0\) is a small parameter, V is a uniformly positive, smooth potential on \(\bar{\Omega }\), and \(\nu \) denotes the outward unit normal of \(\partial \Omega \). Let \(\Gamma \) be a curve intersecting orthogonally \(\partial \Omega \) at exactly two points and dividing \(\Omega \) into two parts. Moreover, \(\Gamma \) satisfies stationary and non-degeneracy conditions with respect to the functional \(\int _{\Gamma }V^{\sigma }\), where \(\sigma =\frac{p+1}{p-1}-\frac{1}{2}\). We prove the existence of a solution \(u_\epsilon \) concentrating along the whole of \(\Gamma \), exponentially small in \(\epsilon \) at any fixed distance from it, provided that \(\epsilon \) is small and away from certain critical numbers. In particular, this establishes the validity of the two dimensional case of a conjecture by Ambrosetti et al. (Indiana Univ Math J 53(2), 297–329, 2004).

     

Regularity for free interface variational problems in a general class of gradients

We present a way to study a wide class of optimal design problems with a perimeter penalization. More precisely, we address existence and regularity properties of saddle points of energies of the form

$$\begin{aligned} (u,A) \quad \mapsto \quad \int _\Omega 2fu \,\mathrm {d}x \; - \int _{\Omega \cap A} \sigma _1\mathscr {A}u\cdot \mathscr {A}u \, \,\mathrm {d}x \; - \int _{\Omega {\setminus } A} \sigma _2\mathscr {A}u\cdot \mathscr {A}u \, \,\mathrm {d}x \; + \; \text {Per }(A;\overline{\Omega }), \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \) is a bounded Lipschitz domain, \(A\subset \mathbb {R}^N\) is a Borel set, \(u:\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^N \rightarrow \mathbb {R}^d\), \(\mathscr {A}\) is an operator of gradient form, and \(\sigma _1, \sigma _2\) are two not necessarily well-ordered symmetric tensors. The class of operators of gradient form includes scalar- and vector-valued gradients, symmetrized gradients, and higher order gradients. Therefore, our results may be applied to a wide range of problems in elasticity, conductivity or plasticity models. In this context and under mild assumptions on f, we show for a solution (w, A), that the topological boundary of \(A \cap \Omega \) is locally a \(\mathrm {C}^1\)-hypersurface up to a closed set of zero \(\mathscr {H}^{N-1}\)-measure.

     

Hölder continuity for continuous solutions of the singular minimal surface equation with arbitrary zero set

In this paper we prove the following theorem: Let \(\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^{n}\) be a bounded open set, \(\psi \in C_{c}^{2}(\mathbb {R}^{n})\), \(\psi > 0\) on \(\partial \Omega \), be given boundary values and u a nonnegative solution to the problem

$$\begin{aligned}&u \in C^{0}(\overline{\Omega }) \cap C^{2}(\{u> 0\}) \\&u = \psi \quad \text { on } \; \partial \Omega \\&{\text {div}} \left( \frac{Du}{\sqrt{1 + |Du|^{2}}}\right) = \frac{\alpha }{u \sqrt{1 + |Du|^{2}}} \quad \text { in } \; \{u > 0\} \end{aligned}$$

where \(\alpha > 0\) is a given constant. Then \(u \in C^{0, \frac{1}{2}} (\overline{\Omega })\). Furthermore we prove strict mean convexity of the free boundary \(\partial \{u = 0\}\) provided \(\partial \{u = 0\}\) is assumed to be of class \(C^{2}\) and \(\alpha \ge 1\).