Ground state solutions for a class of fractional Hamiltonian systems

In this paper we study the following fractional Hamiltonian systems

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{lllll} -_{t}D^{\alpha }_{\infty }(_{-\infty }D^{\alpha }_{t}x(t))- L(t).x(t)+\nabla W(t,x(t))=0, \\ x\in H^{\alpha }(\mathbb {R}, \mathbb {R}^{N}), \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

where \(\alpha \in \left( {1\over {2}}, 1\right] ,\ t\in \mathbb {R}, x\in \mathbb {R}^N,\ _{-\infty }D^{\alpha }_{t}\) and \(_{t}D^{\alpha }_{\infty }\) are the left and right Liouville–Weyl fractional derivatives of order \(\alpha \) on the whole axis \(\mathbb {R}\) respectively, \(L:\mathbb {R}\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}^{2N}\) and \(W: \mathbb {R}\times \mathbb {R}^{N}\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) are suitable functions. One ground state solution is obtained by applying the monotonicity trick of Jeanjean and the concentration-compactness principle in the case where the matrix L(t) is positive definite and \(W \in C^{1}(\mathbb {R}\times \mathbb {R}^{N},\mathbb {R})\) is superquadratic but does not satisfy the usual Ambrosetti–Rabinowitz condition.

     

Inequalities for sine sums with more variables

A result of Vietoris states that if the real numbers \(a_1,\ldots ,a_n\) satisfy

$$\begin{aligned} \text{(*) } \qquad a_1\ge \frac{a_2}{2} \ge \cdots \ge \frac{a_n}{n}>0 \quad \text{ and } \quad a_{2k-1}\ge a_{2k} \quad (1\le k\le n/2), \end{aligned}$$

then, for \(x_1,\ldots ,x_m>0\) with \(x_1+\cdots +x_m <\pi \),

$$\begin{aligned} \begin{aligned} \text{(**) } \qquad \sum _{k=1}^n a_k \frac{\sin (k x_1) \cdots \sin (k x_m)}{k^m}>0. \end{aligned} \end{aligned}$$

We prove that \((**)\) (with “\(\ge \)” instead of “>”) holds under weaker conditions. It suffices to assume, instead of \((*)\), that

$$\begin{aligned} \sum _{k=1}^N a_k \frac{\sin (kt)}{k}>0 \quad (N=1,\ldots ,n; \, 0<t<\pi ), \end{aligned}$$

and, moreover, \((**)\) is valid for a larger region, namely, \(x_1,\ldots ,x_m\in (0,\pi )\).

     

Weighted $$L^2$$ L 2 -norms of Gegenbauer polynomials

We study integrals of the form

$$\begin{aligned} \int _{-1}^1(C_n^{(\lambda )}(x))^2(1-x)^\alpha (1+x)^\beta {{\,\mathrm{\mathrm {d}}\,}}x, \end{aligned}$$

where \(C_n^{(\lambda )}\) denotes the Gegenbauer-polynomial of index \(\lambda >0\) and \(\alpha ,\beta >-1\). We give exact formulas for the integrals and their generating functions, and obtain asymptotic formulas as \(n\rightarrow \infty \).

     

On Neyman–Pearson minimax detection of Poisson process intensity

The problem of the minimax testing of the Poisson process intensity \({\mathbf{s}}\) is considered. For a given intensity \({\mathbf{p}}\) and a set \(\mathcal{Q}\), the minimax testing of the simple hypothesis \(H_{0}: {\mathbf{s}} = {\mathbf{p}}\) against the composite alternative \(H_{1}: {\mathbf{s}} = {\mathbf{q}},\,{\mathbf{q}} \in \mathcal{Q}\) is investigated. The case, when the 1-st kind error probability \(\alpha \) is fixed and we are interested in the minimal possible 2-nd kind error probability \(\beta ({\mathbf{p}},\mathcal{Q})\), is considered. What is the maximal set \(\mathcal{Q}\), which can be replaced by an intensity \({\mathbf{q}} \in \mathcal{Q}\) without any loss of testing performance? In the asymptotic case (\(T\rightarrow \infty \)) that maximal set \(\mathcal{Q}\) is described.

     

Superlinear Elliptic Equations with Variable Exponent via Perturbation Method

We are concerned with the following \(p(x)\)-Laplacian equations in \(\mathbb{R}^{N}\)

$$ -\triangle _{p(x)} u+|u|^{p(x)-2}u= f(x,u)\quad \mbox{in } \mathbb{R} ^{N}. $$

The nonlinearity is superlinear but does not satisfy the Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz type condition. Our main difficulty is that the weak limit of (PS) sequence is not always the weak solution of this problem. To overcome this difficulty, by adding potential term and using mountain pass theorem, we get the weak solution \(u_{\lambda }\) of perturbation equations. First, we prove that \(u_{\lambda }\rightharpoonup u\) as \(\lambda \rightarrow 0\). Second, by using vanishing lemma, we get that \(u\) is a nontrivial solution of the original problem.

     

Proportionally modular numerical semigroups generated by arithmetic progressions

A numerical semigroup is a submonoid of \({{\mathbb {Z}}}_{\ge 0}\) whose complement in \({{\mathbb {Z}}}_{\ge 0}\) is finite. For any set of positive integers a, b, c, the numerical semigroup S(a, b, c) formed by the set of solutions of the inequality \(ax \bmod {b} \le cx\) is said to be proportionally modular. For any interval \([\alpha ,\beta ]\), \(S\big ([\alpha ,\beta ]\big )\) is the submonoid of \({{\mathbb {Z}}}_{\ge 0}\) obtained by intersecting the submonoid of \({{\mathbb {Q}}}_{\ge 0}\) generated by \([\alpha ,\beta ]\) with \({{\mathbb {Z}}}_{\ge 0}\). For the numerical semigroup S generated by a given arithmetic progression, we characterize a, b, c and \(\alpha ,\beta \) such that both S(a, b, c) and \(S\big ([\alpha ,\beta ]\big )\) equal S.

     

Decay Estimates for Solutions of Porous Medium Equations with Advection

In this paper, we show that bounded weak solutions of the Cauchy problem for general degenerate parabolic equations of the form

$$ u_{t} + \operatorname{div}f(x,t,u) = \operatorname{div}\bigl( |u|^{\alpha } \nabla u\bigr), \quad x \in \mathbb{R}^{n} , \ t > 0, $$

where \(\alpha > 0 \) is constant, decrease to zero, under fairly broad conditions on the advection flux \(f\). Besides that, we derive a time decay rate for these solutions.

     

Multilinear Marcinkiewicz-Zygmund Inequalities

We extend to the multilinear setting classical inequalities of Marcinkiewicz and Zygmund on \(\ell ^r\)-valued extensions of linear operators. We show that for certain \(1 \le p, q_1, \dots , q_m, r \le \infty \), there is a constant \(C\ge 0\) such that for every bounded multilinear operator \(T:L^{q_1}(\mu _1) \times \cdots \times L^{q_m}(\mu _m) \rightarrow L^p(\nu )\) and functions \(\{f_{k_1}^1\}_{k_1=1}^{n_1} \subset L^{q_1}(\mu _1), \dots , \{f_{k_m}^m\}_{k_m=1}^{n_m} \subset L^{q_m}(\mu _m)\), the following inequality holds

$$\begin{aligned} \left\| \left( \sum _{k_1, \dots , k_m} |T(f_{k_1}^1, \dots , f_{k_m}^m)|^r\right) ^{1/r} \right\| _{L^p(\nu )} \le C \Vert T\Vert \prod _{i=1}^m \left\| \left( \sum _{k_i=1}^{n_i} |f_{k_i}^i|^r\right) ^{1/r} \right\| _{L^{q_i}(\mu _i)}. \end{aligned}$$ (1)

In some cases we also calculate the best constant \(C\ge 0\) satisfying the previous inequality. We apply these results to obtain weighted vector-valued inequalities for multilinear Calderón-Zygmund operators.

     

A Menon-type identity with Dirichlet characters in residually finite Dedekind domains

This paper studies Menon–Sury’s identity in a general case, i.e., the Menon–Sury’s identity involving Dirichlet characters in residually finite Dedekind domains. By using the filtration of the ring \({\mathfrak {D}}/{\mathfrak {n}}\) and its unit group \(U({\mathfrak {D}}/{\mathfrak {n}})\), we explicitly compute the following two summations:

$$\begin{aligned} \sum _{\begin{array}{c} a\in U({\mathfrak {D}}/{\mathfrak {n}}) \\ b_1, \ldots , b_r\in {\mathfrak {D}}/{\mathfrak {n}} \end{array}} N(\langle a-1,b_1, b_2, \ldots , b_r \rangle +{\mathfrak {n}})\chi (a) \end{aligned}$$

and

$$\begin{aligned} \sum _{\begin{array}{c} a_{1},\ldots , a_{s}\in U({\mathfrak {D}}/{\mathfrak {n}}) \\ b_1, \ldots , b_r\in {\mathfrak {D}}/{\mathfrak {n}} \end{array}} N(\langle a_{1}-1,\ldots , a_{s}-1,b_1, b_2, \ldots , b_r \rangle +{\mathfrak {n}})\chi _{1}(a_1) \cdots \chi _{s}(a_s), \end{aligned}$$

where \({\mathfrak {D}}\) is a residually finite Dedekind domain and \({\mathfrak {n}}\) is a nonzero ideal of \({\mathfrak {D}}\), \(N({\mathfrak {n}})\) is the cardinality of quotient ring \({\mathfrak {D}}/{\mathfrak {n}}\), \(\chi _{i}~(1\le i\le s)\) are Dirichlet characters mod \({\mathfrak {n}}\) with conductor \({\mathfrak {d}}_i\).

     

Existence,Nonexistence and Multiplicity Results of a Chern-Simons-Schrödinger System

We study the existence, nonexistence and multiplicity of solutions to Chern-Simons-Schrödinger system

$$\begin{aligned} \left \{ \textstyle\begin{array}{l@{\quad }l} -\Delta u+u+\lambda (\frac{h^{2}(|x|)}{|x|^{2}}+\int _{|x|}^{+ \infty }\frac{h(s)}{s}u^{2}(s)ds )u=|u|^{p-2}u,\quad x\in \mathbb{R}^{2}, \\ u\in H^{1}_{r}(\mathbb{R}^{2}), \end{array}\displaystyle \right . \end{aligned}$$

where \(\lambda >0\) is a parameter, \(p\in (2,4)\) and

$$ h(s)=\frac{1}{2} \int _{0}^{s}ru^{2}(r)dr. $$

We prove that the system has no solutions for \(\lambda \) large and has two radial solutions for \(\lambda \) small by studying the decomposition of the Nehari manifold and adapting the fibering method. We also give the qualitative properties about the energy of the solutions and a variational characterization of these extremals values of \(\lambda \). Our results improve some results in Pomponio and Ruiz (J. Eur. Math. Soc. 17:1463–1486, 2015).

     

On weighted iterated Hardy-type inequalities

In this paper the inequality

$$\begin{aligned} \bigg ( \int _0^{\infty } \bigg ( \int _x^{\infty } \bigg ( \int _t^{\infty } h \bigg )^q w(t)\,dt \bigg )^{r / q} u(x)\,{ ds} \bigg )^{1/r}\le C \,\int _0^{\infty } h v, \quad h \in {\mathfrak {M}}^+(0,\infty ) \end{aligned}$$

is characterized. Here \(0< q ,\, r < \infty \) and \(u,\,v,\,w\) are weight functions on \((0,\infty )\).

     

The Defect of a Cauchy Type Problem for Linear Equations with Several Riemann–Liouville Derivatives

We consider the existence and uniqueness of solutions to initial value problems for general linear nonhomogeneous equations with several Riemann–Liouville fractional derivatives in Banach spaces. Considering the equation solved for the highest fractional derivative \( D^{\alpha}_{t} \), we introduce the concept of the defect \( m^{*} \) of a Cauchy type problem which determines the number of the zero initial conditions \( D^{\alpha-m+k}_{t}z(0)=0 \), \( k=0,1,\dots,m^{*}-1 \), necessary for the existence of the finite limits \( D^{\alpha-m+k}_{t}z(t) \) as \( t\to 0+ \) for all \( k=0,1,\dots,m-1 \). We show that the defect \( m^{*} \) is uniquely determined by the set of orders of the Riemann–Liouville fractional derivatives in the equation. Also we prove the unique solvability of the incomplete Cauchy problem \( D^{\alpha-m+k}_{t}z(0)=z_{k} \), \( k=m^{*},m^{*}+1,\dots,m-1 \), for the equation with bounded operator coefficients solved for the highest Riemann–Liouville derivative. The obtained result allowed us to investigate initial problems for a linear nonhomogeneous equation with a degenerate operator at the highest fractional derivative, provided that the operator at the second highest order derivative is 0-bounded with respect to this operator, while the cases are distinguished that the fractional part of the order of the second derivative coincides or does not coincide with the fractional part of the order of the highest derivative. The results for equations in Banach spaces are used for the study of initial boundary value problems for a class of equations with several Riemann–Liouville time derivatives and polynomials in a selfadjoint elliptic differential operator of spatial variables.

     

Gaussian Integral Means of Entire Functions

For an entire function \(f:\mathbb C\mapsto \mathbb C\) and a triple \((p,\alpha , r)\in (0,\infty )\times (-\infty ,\infty )\times (0,\infty ]\) , the Gaussian integral mean of \(f\) (with respect to the area measure \(dA\) ) is defined by $$\begin{aligned} {\mathsf M}_{p,\alpha }(f,r)=\left( \,\, {\int \limits _{|z| Via deriving a maximum principle for \({\mathsf M}_{p,\alpha }(f,r)\) , we establish not only Fock–Sobolev trace inequalities associated with \({\mathsf M}_{p,p/2}(z^m f(z),\infty )\) (as \(m=0,1,2,\ldots \) ), but also convexities of \(r\mapsto \ln {\mathsf M}_{p,\alpha }(z^m,r)\) and \(r\mapsto {\mathsf M}_{2,\alpha <0}(f,r)\) in \(\ln r\) with \(0 .     

The Berry–Esseen bounds of the weighted estimator in a nonparametric regression model

Consider the following nonparametric model: \(Y_{ni}=g(x_{ni})+ \varepsilon _{ni},1\le i\le n,\) where \(x_{ni}\in {\mathbb {A}}\) are the nonrandom design points and \({\mathbb {A}}\) is a compact set of \({\mathbb {R}}^{m}\) for some \(m\ge 1\), \(g(\cdot )\) is a real valued function defined on \({\mathbb {A}}\), and \(\varepsilon _{n1},\ldots ,\varepsilon _{nn}\) are \(\rho ^{-}\)-mixing random errors with zero mean and finite variance. We obtain the Berry–Esseen bounds of the weighted estimator of \(g(\cdot )\). The rate can achieve nearly \(O(n^{-1/4})\) when the moment condition is appropriate. Moreover, we carry out some simulations to verify the validity of our results.

     

Impulsive fractional boundary value problem with <Emphasis Type="Italic">p</Emphasis>-Laplace operator

In the present paper, we deal with the existence and multiplicity of solutions for the following impulsive fractional boundary value problem

$$\begin{aligned} {_{t}}D_{T}^{\alpha }\left( \left| {_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t)\right| ^{p-2}{_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t)\right) + a(t)|u(t)|^{p-2}u(t)= & {} f(t,u(t)),\;\;t\ne t_j,\;\;\hbox {a.e.}\;\;t\in [0,T],\\ \Delta \left( {_{t}}I_{T}^{1-\alpha }\left( \left| {_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t_j)\right| ^{p-2}{_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t_j)\right) \right)= & {} I_j(u(t_j))\;\;j=1,2,\ldots ,n,\\ u(0)= & {} u(T) = 0. \end{aligned}$$

where \(\alpha \in (1/p, 1]\), \(1<p<\infty \), \(0 = t_0<t_1< t_2< \cdots< t_n < t_{n+1} = T\), \(f:[0,T]\times \mathbb {R} \rightarrow \mathbb {R}\) and \(I_j : \mathbb {R} \rightarrow \mathbb {R}\), \(j = 1, \ldots , n\), are continuous functions, \(a\in C[0,T]\) and

$$\begin{aligned} \Delta \left( {_{t}}I_{T}^{1-\alpha }\left( \left| {_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t_j)\right| ^{p-2}{_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t_j)\right) \right)= & {} {_{t}}I_{T}^{1-\alpha }\left( \left| {_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u\left( t_j^+\right) \right| ^{p-2}{_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u\left( t_j^+\right) \right) \\&- {_{t}}I_{T}^{1-\alpha }\left( \left| {_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t_j^-)\right| ^{p-2}{_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u\left( t_j^-\right) \right) ,\\ {_{t}}I_{T}^{1-\alpha }\left( \left| {_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u\left( t_j^+\right) \right| ^{p-2}{_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u\left( t_j^+\right) \right)= & {} \lim _{t \rightarrow t_j^+} {_{t}}I_{T}^{1-\alpha }\left( \left| {_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t)\right| ^{p-2}{_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t)\right) ,\\ {_{t}}I_{T}^{1-\alpha }\left( \left| {_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t_j^-)\right| ^{p-2}{_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t_j^-)\right)= & {} \lim _{t\rightarrow t_j^-}{_{t}}I_{T}^{1-\alpha }\left( \left| {_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t)\right| ^{p-2}{_{0}}D_{t}^{\alpha }u(t)\right) . \end{aligned}$$

By using variational methods and critical point theory, we give some criteria to guarantee that the above-mentioned impulsive problems have at least one weak solution and a sequences of weak solutions.

     

On the Coincidence of the Classes of Finite Groups $ E_{\pi_{x}} $ and $ D_{\pi_{x}} $

Let \( \pi_{x} \) be the set of primes greater than \( x \). We prove that for all \( x\in{??} \) the classes of finite groups \( D_{\pi_{x}} \) and \( E_{\pi_{x}} \) coincide; i.e., a finite group \( G \) possesses a \( \pi_{x} \)-Hall subgroup if and only if \( G \) satisfies the complete analog of the Sylow Theorems for a \( \pi_{x} \)-subgroup.

     

$$\pi $$π-Formulas and Gray code

In previous papers we introduced a class of polynomials which follow the same recursive formula as the Lucas–Lehmer numbers, studying the distribution of their zeros and remarking that this distribution follows a sequence related to the binary Gray code. It allowed us to give an order for all the zeros of every polynomial \(L_n\). In this paper, the zeros, expressed in terms of nested radicals, are used to obtain two formulas for \(\pi \): the first can be seen as a generalization of the known formula

$$\begin{aligned} \pi =\lim _{n\rightarrow \infty } 2^{n+1}\cdot \sqrt{2-\underbrace{\sqrt{2+\sqrt{2+\sqrt{2+\cdots +\sqrt{2}}}}}_{n}}, \end{aligned}$$

related to the smallest positive zero of \(L_n\); the second is an exact formula for \(\pi \) achieved thanks to some identities valid for \(L_n\).

     

Blow Up Criteria for the Incompressible Nematic Liquid Crystal Flows

In this paper, we investigate blow up criteria for the local smooth solutions to the 3D incompressible nematic liquid crystal flows via the components of the gradient velocity field \(\nabla u\) and the gradient orientation field \(\nabla d\). More precisely, we show that \(0< T_{ \ast}<+\infty\) is the maximal time interval if and only if

$$\begin{aligned} & \int_{0}^{T_{\ast}} \bigl\Vert \Vert \partial_{i}u\Vert _{L_{x_{i}} ^{\gamma}} \bigr\Vert _{L_{x_{j}x_{k}}^{\alpha}}^{\beta}+ \|\nabla d\| _{L^{\infty}}^{\frac{8}{3}}\mathrm{d}t=\infty, \\ &\quad\text{ with } \frac{2}{\alpha}+\frac{2}{\beta}\leq\frac{3\alpha +2}{4\alpha}, \text{ and } 1\leq\gamma\leq\alpha,2< \alpha\leq+\infty, \end{aligned}$$

or

$$\begin{aligned} \int_{0}^{T_{\ast}}\|\partial_{3}u_{3} \|^{\beta}_{L^{\alpha}}+\| \nabla d\|^{\frac{8}{3}}_{L^{\infty}} \mathrm{d}t=\infty,\quad\text{with } \frac{3}{\alpha}+\frac{2}{\beta}\leq \frac{3(\alpha+2)}{4 \alpha}, \text{ and } 2< \alpha\leq\infty, \end{aligned}$$

where \(i,j,k\in\{1,2,3\}\), \(i\neq j\), \(i\neq k\), and \(j\neq k\).

     

Littlewood–Paley and Finite Atomic Characterizations of Anisotropic Variable Hardy–Lorentz Spaces and Their Applications

Let \(p(\cdot ):\ {{\mathbb {R}}}^n\rightarrow (0,\infty ]\) be a variable exponent function satisfying the globally log-Hölder continuous condition, \(q\in (0,\infty ]\) and A be a general expansive matrix on \({\mathbb {R}}^n\). Let \(H_A^{p(\cdot ),q}({{\mathbb {R}}}^n)\) be the anisotropic variable Hardy–Lorentz space associated with A defined via the radial grand maximal function. In this article, the authors characterize \(H_A^{p(\cdot ),q}({{\mathbb {R}}}^n)\) by means of the Littlewood–Paley g-function or the Littlewood–Paley \(g_\lambda ^*\)-function via first establishing an anisotropic Fefferman–Stein vector-valued inequality on the variable Lorentz space \(L^{p(\cdot ),q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)\). Moreover, the finite atomic characterization of \(H_A^{p(\cdot ),q}({{\mathbb {R}}}^n)\) is also obtained. As applications, the authors then establish a criterion on the boundedness of sublinear operators from \(H^{p(\cdot ),q}_A({\mathbb {R}}^n)\) into a quasi-Banach space. Applying this criterion, the authors show that the maximal operators of the Bochner–Riesz and the Weierstrass means are bounded from \(H^{p(\cdot ),q}_A({\mathbb {R}}^n)\) to \(L^{p(\cdot ),q}({\mathbb {R}}^n)\) and, as consequences, some almost everywhere and norm convergences of these Bochner–Riesz and Weierstrass means are also obtained. These results on the Bochner–Riesz and the Weierstrass means are new even in the isotropic case.

     

Sharp Affine and Improved Moser–Trudinger–Adams Type Inequalities on Unbounded Domains in the Spirit of Lions

The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, we prove sharp singular affine Moser–Trudinger inequalities on both bounded and unbounded domains in \({\mathbb {R}}^{n}\). In particular, we will prove the following much sharper affine Moser–Trudinger inequality in the spirit of Lions (Rev Mat Iberoamericana 1(2):45–121, 1985) (see our Theorem 1.4): Let \(\alpha _{n}=n\left( \frac{n\pi ^{\frac{n}{2}}}{\Gamma (\frac{n}{2}+1)}\right) ^{\frac{1}{n-1}}\), \(0\le \beta <n\) and \(\tau >0\). Then there exists a constant \(C=C\left( n,\beta \right) >0\) such that for all \(0\le \alpha \le \left( 1-\frac{\beta }{n}\right) \alpha _{n}\) and \(u\in C_{0}^{\infty }\left( {\mathbb {R}}^{n}\right) \setminus \left\{ 0\right\} \) with the affine energy \(~{\mathcal {E}}_{n}\left( u\right) <1\), we have

$$\begin{aligned} {\displaystyle \int \nolimits _{{\mathbb {R}}^{n}}} \frac{\phi _{n,1}\left( \frac{2^{\frac{1}{n-1}}\alpha }{\left( 1+{\mathcal {E}}_{n}\left( u\right) ^{n}\right) ^{\frac{1}{n-1}}}\left| u\right| ^{\frac{n}{n-1}}\right) }{\left| x\right| ^{\beta }}dx\le C\left( n,\beta \right) \frac{\left\| u\right\| _{n}^{n-\beta }}{\left| 1-{\mathcal {E}}_{n}\left( u\right) ^{n}\right| ^{1-\frac{\beta }{n}}}. \end{aligned}$$

Moreover, the constant \(\left( 1-\frac{\beta }{n}\right) \alpha _{n}\) is the best possible in the sense that there is no uniform constant \(C(n, \beta )\) independent of u in the above inequality when \(\alpha >\left( 1-\frac{\beta }{n}\right) \alpha _{n}\). Second, we establish the following improved Adams type inequality in the spirit of Lions (Theorem 1.8): Let \(0\le \beta <2m\) and \(\tau >0\). Then there exists a constant \(C=C\left( m,\beta ,\tau \right) >0\) such that

$$\begin{aligned} \underset{u\in W^{2,m}\left( {\mathbb {R}}^{2m}\right) , \int _{ {\mathbb {R}}^{2m}}\left| \Delta u\right| ^{m}+\tau \left| u\right| ^{m} \le 1}{\sup } {\displaystyle \int \nolimits _{{\mathbb {R}}^{2m}}} \frac{\phi _{2m,2}\left( \frac{2^{\frac{1}{m-1}}\alpha }{\left( 1+\left\| \Delta u\right\| _{m}^{m}\right) ^{\frac{1}{m-1}}}\left| u\right| ^{\frac{m}{m-1}}\right) }{\left| x\right| ^{\beta }}dx\le C\left( m,\beta ,\tau \right) , \end{aligned}$$

for all \(0\le \alpha \le \left( 1-\frac{\beta }{2m}\right) \beta (2m,2)\). When \(\alpha >\left( 1-\frac{\beta }{2m}\right) \beta (2m,2)\), the supremum is infinite. In the above, we use

$$\begin{aligned} \phi _{p,q}(t)=e^{t}- {\displaystyle \sum \limits _{j=0}^{j_{\frac{p}{q}}-2}} \frac{t^{j}}{j!},\,\,\,j_{\frac{p}{q}}=\min \left\{ j\in {\mathbb {N}} :j\ge \frac{p}{q}\right\} \ge \frac{p}{q}. \end{aligned}$$

The main difficulties of proving the above results are that the symmetrization method does not work. Therefore, our main ideas are to develop a rearrangement-free argument in the spirit of Lam and Lu (J Differ Equ 255(3):298–325, 2013; Adv Math 231(6): 3259–3287, 2012), Lam et al. (Nonlinear Anal 95: 77–92, 2014) to establish such theorems. Third, as an application, we will study the existence of weak solutions to the biharmonic equation

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{l} \Delta ^{2}u+V(x)u=f(x,u)\text { in }{\mathbb {R}}^{4}\\ u\in H^{2}\left( {\mathbb {R}}^{4}\right) ,~u\ge 0 \end{array} \right. , \end{aligned}$$

where the nonlinearity f has the critical exponential growth.