Surfaces with prescribed Gauss curvature (Q1847781)

This paper is concerned with prescribing Gaussian curvature for surfaces over \(\mathbb{R}^2\), i.e. with discussing existence and uniqueness for the following semilinear elliptic PDE: \[ K(x)=-e ^{-2u(x)}\Delta u(x) \] in the unknown function \(u\). The authors adopt a new approach to this long standing problem, which permit them to consider a wide class of curvature functions \(K\), in particular for those \(K\) which have points of strict positivity. A thorough discussion is presented on the conditions on \(K\) which assure a radial symmetry of the surface found.