Bound states of nonlinear Schrödinger equations with potentials vanishing at infinity (Q2479607)

The authors consider the nonlinear Schrödinger problem \(-\varepsilon ^{2}\Delta u+V(x)u=K(x)u^{p}\), \(u>0\), posed in \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\), where \( \varepsilon >0\), \(1<p<(n+2)/(n-2)\).\ Here \(V\) and \(K\) are smooth bounded and positive potentials. The authors assume that \(A_{0}/(1+| x| ^{\alpha })\leq V(x)\leq A_{1}\) and \(0\leq K(x)\leq k/(1+| x| ^{\beta })\) on \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\) with some hypotheses on \(\alpha \) and \(\beta \). They are looking for generalized solutions of this problem which belong to \(W^{1,2}(\mathbb{R}^{n})\). They introduce the function \(Q(x)=V^{\theta }(x)K^{2/(p-1)}(x)\), with \(\theta =(p+1)/(p-1)-n/2\). In the main result, the authors prove that if \(x_{0}\) is an isolated stable stationary point of \(Q\), for \(\varepsilon \) small enough, then, the Schrödinger problem has a finite energy solution which concentrates at \(x_{0}\). For the proof, the authors quote the previous result [see \textit{A. Ambrosetti, V. Felli} and \textit{A. Malchiodi}, J. Eur. Math. Soc. 7, No. 1, 117--144 (2005; Zbl 1064.35175)], where the existence was proved for the problem, assuming other hypotheses. The authors introduce some change of variables and a truncated nonlinearity which lead to an energy functional \( I_{\varepsilon }\) defined on a Hilbert space \(E\). The authors then use functional analysis arguments and intricate computations.