On the classification of stable solutions to biharmonic problems in large dimensions (Q2393606)

The paper studies the biharmonic problems \(\Delta^2 u=u^p\), \(u>0\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) and \(\Delta^2 u=\lambda (u+1)^p\), \(\lambda >0\) in \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^n\), \(u>0\) in \(\Omega \), \(u=\Delta u=0\) on \(\partial \Omega \) under the assumption \(n\geq 20\), \(1<p<8q/(n-4)\). Here \(q\) stands for the smallest real root greater than \((n-4)/(n-8)\) of the algebraic equation \[ \begin{aligned} & 512 (2-n)x^6 +4(n^3-60 n^2 +670 n -1344) x^5 -2 (13 n^3 - 424 n^2 + 3064 n - 5408) x^4 \\ & +2(27 n^3 - 572 n^2 + 3264 - 5440) x^3 -( 49 n^3 -772 n^2 + 3776 n - 5888) x^2 \\ & +4 (5 n^3 - 66n^2 +288 n - 416) x -3 (n^3 - 12 n^2 +48 n -64) =0.\end{aligned} \] In the first part of the paper it is proved that the problem \(\Delta^2 u=u^p\), \(u>0\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) has no stable solutions. In the second part, the problem \(\Delta^2 u = \lambda (u+1)^p\), \(u>0\) in \(\Omega \), \(u=\Delta u=0\) on \(\partial \Omega \) is studied under the assumption that \(\Omega \) is a bounded convex domain with smooth boundary and \(\lambda \) is critical. It is proved that the extremal solution is bounded.