Nonlinear elliptic equations with natural growth in general domains (Q2368610)

The authors prove the existence of solutions of nonlinear elliptic problems whose model is \[ -\Delta_pu + \alpha_0 |u|^{p-2}u = d(x)|\nabla u|^p + f(x) - \text{div}\, g(x) \quad\text{in}\quad \Omega, \qquad u\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega), \] where \(\Omega\) is an open set in \({\mathbb R}^N\), possibly of infinite measure, \(\Delta_pu=\text{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)\) is the \(p\)-Laplacian, \(\alpha_0\) is a positive constant, \(d\in L^\infty(\Omega)\), and \[ f\in L^{N/p}(\{x\in\Omega:|f(x)|>1\}), \quad f\in L^{p^{\prime}}(\{x\in\Omega:|f(x)|\leq 1\}), \] \[ g\in L^{N/(p-1)}(\Omega;{\mathbb R}^N)\cap L^{p^{\prime}}(\Omega;{\mathbb R}^N) \] where \(1<p<N\). These assumptions reduce to \(f\in L^{N/p}(\Omega)\), \(g\in L^{N/(p-1)}(\Omega;{\mathbb R}^N)\) if \(\Omega\) has finite measure. These kinds of problems with lower order terms \(H(x,u,\nabla u)\) having growth \(p\) in the gradient and \(\Omega\) bounded have been studied by \textit{L. Boccardo, F. Murat} and \textit{J.-P. Puel}[Ann. Mat. Pura Appl. 152, 183--196 (1988; Zbl 0687.35042); SIAM J. Math. Anal. 23, No. 2, 326--333 (1992; Zbl 0785.35033)] with \(f\in L^q(\Omega)\), \(g\in L^r(\Omega;{\mathbf R}^N)\) for \(q>N/p\) and \(r>N/(p-1)\). Still assuming \(\Omega\) to be bounded, \textit{V. Ferone} and \textit{F. Murat} [Nonlinear Anal., Theory Methods Appl. 42, No. 7 (A), 1309--1326 (2000)] considered the limit case \(f\in L^{N/p}(\Omega)\), \(g\in L^{N/(p-1)}(\Omega;{\mathbb R}^N)\) with sufficiently small norms; in this work \(\alpha_0=0\) is permitted. Here the authors show that the presence of the term \(\alpha_0|u|^{p-2}u\) with \(\alpha_0>0\) allows the smallness assumptions on the source terms \(f,g\) to be removed, and moreover, \(\Omega\) may be allowed to have infinite measure.