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.

     

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 \(m\ge 0\).

     

Existence of Solution for a Singular Elliptic Equation of Kirchhoff Type

We study both the existence and uniqueness of nonnegative solution to a singular elliptic problem of Kirchhoff type, whose model is:

$$\begin{aligned} {\left\{ \begin{array}{ll} -B\left( \dfrac{1}{2}\displaystyle \int _\Omega |\nabla u|^2\mathrm {d}x\right) \Delta u=\dfrac{h(x)}{u^\gamma }, &{}\quad x\in \Omega ,\\ u>0, &{}\quad x\in \Omega ,\\ u=0, &{}\quad x\in \partial \Omega , \end{array}\right. } \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^n(n\ge 1)\) is a smooth bounded domain, \(\gamma >1\), \(h\in L^1(\Omega )\) is positive (i.e., \(h(x)>0\) a.e. in \(\Omega \)), \(B : \mathbb {R}^+\rightarrow \mathbb {R}^+\) is a \(C^1\)-continuous function with positive lower bound. A necessary and sufficient condition will be given for the existence of weak solution of the general nonlocal singular elliptic with strong singularity. In addition, we prove that the solution is unique under some suitable conditions.

     

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.

     

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.

     

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.

     

Existence results to positive solutions of fractional BVP with $${\varvec{}}$$-derivatives

This paper investigates the existence and uniqueness of positive and nondecreasing solution for nonlinear boundary value problem with fractional q-derivative

$$\begin{aligned}&D_{q}^{\alpha }u(t)+f(t,u(t))=0, \quad {0<t<1, ~3<\alpha \le 4,} \\&u(0)= D_{q}u(0)=D_{q}^{2}u(0)=0, \quad D_{q}^{2}u(1)=\beta D_{q}^{2}u(\eta ), \end{aligned}$$

where \(D_{q}^{\alpha }\) denotes the Riemann–Liouville q-derivative of order \(\alpha \), \(0<\eta <1\) and \(1-\beta \eta ^{\alpha -3}>0\). Our analysis relies a fixed point theorem in partially ordered sets. An example to illustrate our results is given.

     

Existence of positive solutions for periodic boundary value problem with sign-changing Green’s function

We prove the existence of positive solutions for the boundary value problem

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} y^{\prime \prime }+m^{2}y=\lambda g(t)f(y), &{}\quad 0\le t\le 2\pi , \\ y(0)=y(2\pi ), &{}\quad y^{\prime }(0)=y^{\prime }(2\pi ), \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

for certain range of the parameter \(\lambda >0\), where \(m\in (1/2,1/2+\varepsilon )\) with \(\varepsilon >0\) small, and f is superlinear or sublinear at \(\infty \) with no sign-conditions at 0 assumed.

     

Multiplicity results for elliptic problems with super-critical concave and convex nonlinearties

We shall prove a multiplicity result for semilinear elliptic problems with a super-critical nonlinearity of the form,

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} -\,\Delta u =|u|^{p-2} u+\mu |u|^{q-2}u, &{}\quad x \in \Omega \\ u=0, &{}\quad x \in \partial \Omega \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

(1)

where \(\Omega \subset \mathbb {R}^n\) is a bounded domain with \(C^2\)-boundary and \(1<q< 2<p.\) As a consequence of our results we shall show that, for each \(p>2\), there exists \(\mu ^*>0\) such that for each \(\mu \in (0, \mu ^*)\) problem (1) has a sequence of solutions with a negative energy. This result is already known for the subcritical values of p. In this paper, we shall extend it to the supercritical values of p as well. Our methodology is based on a new variational principle established by one of the authors that allows one to deal with problems beyond the usual locally compactness structure.

     

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).

     

A priori bounds and existence of positive solutions of an elliptic system of Kirchhoff type in three or four space dimensions

Let \(\Omega \subseteq \mathbb {R}^n(n\ge 3)\) be a bounded and smooth domain. Assuming that \(\alpha ,a,b>0\), \(p,q>0\), we consider the following elliptic problem of Kirchhoff type

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{llll} -(a+b\Vert \nabla u_1\Vert ^{2\alpha }_2)\Delta u_1= u_2^{p}+h_1(x, u_1, u_2, \nabla u_1, \nabla u_2) &{} \quad \text{ in }&{}\quad \Omega , \\ -\Delta u_2= u_1^{q}+h_2(x, u_1, u_2, \nabla u_1, \nabla u_2) &{}\quad \text{ in } &{}\quad \Omega , \\ u_1,u_2>0 &{} \quad \text{ in } &{}\quad \Omega , \\ u_1=u_2=0 &{} \quad \text{ on }&{}\quad \partial \Omega . \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

(0.1)

Under some assumptions of \(h_i(x, u_1, u_2, \nabla u_1, \nabla u_2)(i=1, 2)\), we get a priori bounds of the positive solutions to the problem (0.1) when \(n=3,4\) and p, q satisfy \(p,q>1\), \(pq>2\alpha +1\) and \(\frac{1}{p+1}+\frac{1}{q+1}>\frac{n-2}{n}\). By these estimates and the method of continuity, we get the existence for the positive solutions to the problem (0.1). Moreover, the effect of the term \(b\Vert \nabla u_1\Vert ^{2\alpha }_2\) on the solution set of the problem (0.1) also can be given in section 2.

     

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.

     

Existence and Multiplicity of Solutions for Fractional Elliptic Problems with Discontinuous Nonlinearities

We consider the following fractional elliptic problem:

$$\begin{aligned} (P)\left\{ \begin{array}{ll} (-\Delta )^s u = f(u) H(u-\mu )&{} \quad \text{ in } \ \Omega ,\\ u =0 &{}\quad \text{ on } \ \mathbb{{R}}^n {\setminus } \Omega , \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

where \((-\Delta )^s, s\in (0,1)\) is the fractional Laplacian, \(\Omega \) is a bounded domain of \(\mathbb{{R}}^n,(n\ge 2s)\) with smooth boundary \(\partial \Omega ,\) H is the Heaviside step function, f is a given function and \(\mu \) is a positive real parameter. The problem (P) can be considered as simplified version of some models arising in different contexts. We employ variational techniques to study the existence and multiplicity of positive solutions of problem (P).

     

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.

     

Existence of multi-bump solutions for a class of elliptic problems involving the biharmonic operator

Using variational methods, we establish existence of multi-bump solutions for the following class of problems

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{l} \Delta ^2 u +(\lambda V(x)+1)u = f(u), \quad \text{ in } \quad \mathbb {R}^{N},\\ u \in H^{2}(\mathbb {R}^{N}), \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

where \(N \ge 1\), \(\Delta ^2\) is the biharmonic operator, f is a continuous function with subcritical growth, \(V : \mathbb {R}^N \rightarrow \mathbb {R}\) is a continuous function verifying some conditions and \(\lambda >0\) is a real constant large enough.

     

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 \(\alpha \ge 1\).

     

Scaling Limits for Mixed Kernels

Let \(\mu \) and \(\nu \) be measures supported on \(\left( -1,1\right) \) with corresponding orthonormal polynomials \(\left\{ p_{n}^{\mu }\right\} \) and \( \left\{ p_{n}^{\nu }\right\} \), respectively. Define the mixed kernel

$$\begin{aligned} K_{n}^{{\mu },\nu }\left( x,y\right) =\sum _{j=0}^{n-1}p_{j}^{\mu }\left( x\right) p_{j}^{\nu }\left( y\right) . \end{aligned}$$

We establish scaling limits such as

$$\begin{aligned}&\lim _{n\rightarrow \infty }\frac{\pi \sqrt{1-\xi ^{2}}\sqrt{\mu ^{\prime }\left( \xi \right) \nu ^{\prime }\left( \xi \right) }}{n}K_{n}^{\mu ,\nu }\left( \xi +\frac{a\pi \sqrt{1-\xi ^{2}}}{n},\xi +\frac{b\pi \sqrt{1-\xi ^{2}}}{n}\right) \\&\quad =S\left( \frac{\pi \left( a-b\right) }{2}\right) \cos \left( \frac{\pi \left( a-b\right) }{2}+B\left( \xi \right) \right) , \end{aligned}$$

where \(S\left( t\right) =\frac{\sin t}{t}\) is the sinc kernel, and \(B\left( \xi \right) \) depends on \({\mu },\nu \) and \(\xi \). This reduces to the classical universality limit in the bulk when \(\mu =\nu \). We deduce applications to the zero distribution of \(K_{n}^{{\mu },\nu }\), and asymptotics for its derivatives.

     

Multilicity results for some nonlinear ellitic roblems with asymtotically $${{\varvec{}}}$$-linear terms

Taking any \(p > 1\), we consider the asymptotically p-linear problem

$$\begin{aligned} \left\{ \begin{array}{ll} - {{\mathrm{div}}}(a(x,u,\nabla u)) + A_t(x,u,\nabla u)\ = \ \lambda ^\infty |u|^{p-2}u + g^\infty (x,u) &{}\quad \hbox {in}\;\Omega ,\\ u\ = \ 0 &{}\quad \hbox {on}\;\partial \Omega , \end{array} \right. \end{aligned}$$

where \(\Omega \) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb R^N\), \(N\ge 2\), \(A(x,t,\xi )\) is a real function on \(\Omega \times \mathbb R\times \mathbb R^N\) which grows with power p with respect to \(\xi \) and has partial derivatives \(A_t(x,t,\xi ) = \frac{\partial A}{\partial t}(x,t,\xi )\), \(a(x,t,\xi ) = \nabla _\xi A(x,t,\xi )\). If \(A(x,t,\xi ) \rightarrow A^\infty (x,t)\) and \(\frac{g^\infty (x,t)}{|t|^{p-1}} \rightarrow 0\) as \(|t| \rightarrow +\infty \), suitable assumptions, variational methods and either the cohomological index theory or its related pseudo-index one, allow us to prove the existence of multiple nontrivial bounded solutions in the non-resonant case, i.e. if \(\lambda ^\infty \) is not an eigenvalue of the operator associated to \(\nabla _\xi A^\infty (x,\xi )\). In particular, while in [14] the model problem \(A(x,t,\xi ) = \mathcal{A}(x,t) |\xi |^p\) with \(p > N\) is studied, here our goal is twofold: extending such results not only to a more general family of functions \(A(x,t,\xi )\), but also to the more difficult case \(1 < p \le N\).

     

Tauberian conditions for the $$(C, \alpha )$$ integrability of functions

For a real-valued continuous function f(x) on \([0,\infty )\), we define

$$\begin{aligned} s(x)=\int _{0}^{x} f(u)du\quad \text {and}\quad \sigma _{\alpha } (x)= \int _{0}^{x}\left( 1-\frac{u}{x}\right) ^{\alpha }f(u)du \end{aligned}$$

for \(x>0\). We say that \(\int _{0}^{\infty } f(u)du\) is \((C, \alpha )\) integrable to L for some \(\alpha >-1\) if the limit \(\lim _{x \rightarrow \infty } \sigma _{\alpha } (x)=L\) exists. It is known that \(\lim _{x \rightarrow \infty } s(x) =L\) implies \(\lim _{x \rightarrow \infty }\sigma _{\alpha } (x) =L\) for all \(\alpha >-1\). The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we introduce some new Tauberian conditions for the \((C, \alpha )\) integrability method under which the converse implication is satisfied, and improve classical Tauberian theorems for the \((C,\alpha )\) integrability method. Next we give short proofs of some classical Tauberian theorems as special cases of some of our results.

     

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.