Existence and uniqueness for nonlinear anisotropic elliptic equations (Q2447677)

Let \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^N\) (\(N\geq 2\)) be a bounded open set, and let \(p_1,\dots,p_N\in (1,\infty)\) be such that their harmonic mean is strictly less than \(N\). Moreover, let \(p_\infty\) be the critical exponent for the embedding in \(L^q(\Omega)\) (\(q>1\)) of the anisotropic space \(W_0^{1,\vec{p}}(\Omega):=\{u\in W^{1,1}(\Omega): \partial_{x_i}\in L^{p_i}(\Omega), i=1,\dots,N\}\), equipped with the norm \(\|u\|_{W^{1,\vec{p}}(\Omega)}=\|u\|_{L^1(\Omega)}+\sum_{i=1}^N\|\partial_{x_i}u\|_{L^{p_i}(\Omega)}\). The authors study the nonlinear anisotropic elliptic problem \[ {-\partial_{x_i}a_i(x,u,\nabla u)+\sum_{i=1}^NH_i(x,\nabla u)=f-\partial_{x_i}g_i} \quad \text{in} \quad {\Omega}, \] \(u=0\) on \(\partial \Omega\), where, for \(i=1,\dots,N\), \(a_i:\Omega\times \mathbb{R}\times \mathbb{R}^N\rightarrow \mathbb{R}\), \(H_i:\Omega \times \mathbb{R}^N\rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) are Carathéodory functions, \(g_i\in L^{p_i'}(\Omega)\), and \(f\in L^{p_\infty'}(\Omega)\). Some existence and uniqueness results for (weak) solutions are established by assuming certain ellipticity, strong monotonicity and \((p_i-1)\)-sublinear growth conditions on \(a_i(x,s,\cdot)\) and a uniform \((p_i-1)\)-sublinear growth condition on \(H_i(x,\cdot)\). When \(H_i=0\) for all \(i=1,\dots,n\), the existence of a solution follows by the classical Leray-Lions theorem. When \(H_i\neq 0\) for some \(i\), the authors establish an \textit{a priori} estimate result which they use in an approximation procedure to prove the existence of a solution. The uniqueness of the solution is proved by testing the equation with suitable test-functions.