Solutions for quasilinear Schrödinger systems with critical exponents (Q2355492)

In this paper, the authors study the existence of ground state positive solutions \((u,v)\in (H^1(\mathbb{R}^N)\cap L^\infty(\mathbb{R}^N))\times (H^1(\mathbb{R}^N)\cap L^\infty(\mathbb{R}^N))\) \((N\geq 3)\) for the following quasilinear Schrödinger system in \(\mathbb{R}^N\) \[ {\sum_{i,j=1}^ND_j(a_{ij}(u)D_i u)-\frac{1}{2}\sum_{i,j=1}^N(D_sa_{ij})(u)D_i uD_j u-a(x)u+F_u(u,v)=0}, \] \[ {\sum_{i,j=1}^ND_j(a_{ij}(v)D_i u)-\frac{1}{2}\sum_{i,j=1}^N(D_sa_{ij})(v)D_i vD_j v-b(x)v+F_v(u,v)=0}. \] Here, \(F_u\), \(F_v\) are the partial derivatives of the function \(F(u,v)=|u|^{\alpha}|v|^{\beta}+|u|^{p}|v|^{p}\), where the exponents \(\alpha,\beta,p,q\) are strictly greater than \(1\) and satisfy the conditions \(\alpha+\beta=\frac{4N}{N-2}\), \(4<p+q<\frac{4N}{N-2}\). The coefficients \(a,b:\mathbb{R}^N\rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) are positive Hölder continuous real functions and satisfy \(a(x)\leq \lim_{|y|\rightarrow +\infty}a(y)\), \(b(x)\leq \lim_{|y|\rightarrow +\infty}b(y)\), for all \(x\in \mathbb{R}^N\), and the coefficients \(a_{ij}:\mathbb{R}\rightarrow\mathbb{R}\) are real functions with Hölder continuous derivative in \(\mathbb{R}\). Moreover, the involved differential operator satisfies the following conditions: - there exist \(c_0\in (1,+\infty)\), \(c_1 \in\biggl(\frac{2(p+q)}{p+q-2},p+q-2\biggl)\) such that \[ {c_0^{-1}(1+4s^2)|\xi|^2 \;\leq \;\sum_{i,j=1}^Na_{ij}(s)\xi_i\xi_j\leq c_0 (1+4s^2)|\xi|^2}, \] \[ {c_1^{-1} \sum_{i,j=1}^Na_{ij}(s)\xi_i\xi_j\leq \sum_{i,j=1}^N(D_sa_{ij})(s)s\xi_i\xi_j\leq c_1\sum_{i,j=1}^Na_{ij}(s)\xi_i\xi_j}, \] for all \(s\in \mathbb{R}\) and \(\xi\in \mathbb{R}^N\), - there exist \(\eta\in [0,2)\), such that \[ {\sum_{i,j=1}^Na_{ij}(s)\xi_i\xi_j=2s^2+o(|s|^\eta), \;\;\frac{1}{2}\sum_{i,j=1}^N(D_sa_{ij})(s)s\xi_i\xi_j=2s^2+o(|s|^\eta)}, \] as \(|s|\rightarrow +\infty\), uniformly with respect to \(\xi\) belonging to the unit sphere of \(\mathbb{R}^N\). Under the above assumptions, the authors prove that a positive ground state solution exists provided \(p+q>4\) if \(n\geq 6\), and \(p+q>2(N+2)/(N-2)\) if \(N=3,4,5\). Ingredients of the proof are a compactness result for perturbations of the energy functional associated to the system which yields approximate solutions, and an \(L^\infty\) estimate of these latter which the authors obtain using the Moser iteration method. A positive ground state solution is then obtained as a limit of approximate solutions.