Mountain pass solutions for singularly perturbed nonlinear Dirichlet problems (Q2575065)

The author considers the singularly perturbed problem \[ \varepsilon^2\Delta -u +f(u) =0 \] in a bounded \(C^2\) domain of \(\mathbb{R}^n\), when \(u\) is subject to the homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. Under certain technical assumptions there exists a positive mountain-pass solution \(v_\varepsilon\) to this problem. Denote by \(x_\epsilon\) the maximum point of \(v_\varepsilon\). It follows that \(v_\varepsilon\) exhibits a spike layer close to \(x_\varepsilon\) and thus it is natural to investigate the location of \(x_\varepsilon\) for small values of \(\varepsilon\). \textit{W.-M. Ni} and \textit{J. Wei} established in [Commun. Pure Appl. Math. 48, No. 7, 731--768 (1995; Zbl 0838.35009)] that, under additional assumptions, \[ \lim_{\varepsilon\to 0} \text{dist}(x_\varepsilon,\partial\Omega) = \max_{x\in \Omega} \text{dist}(x,\partial\Omega). \] In this paper the author obtains the same result without these additional conditions. However, to prove it in full generality the assumption \(n\geq 3\) is needed (though it is noted that the case \(n=1\) requires much weaker assumptions).