Schrödinger-Poisson system with steep potential well (Q549230)

In this paper the authors study the existence of nontrivial solutions of the Schrödinger-Poisson system \[ \begin{aligned} -\Delta u+V_{\mu}(x)u+\lambda \phi(x)u&=|u|^{p-1}u, \\ -\Delta \phi=u^{2}, \displaystyle\lim_{|x|\rightarrow +\infty}\phi(x)&=0. \end{aligned} \] for \(x\in \mathbb{R}^3\). Here \(p\in (1,5)\), \(\lambda\) and \(\mu\) are positive parameters, and \(V_{\mu}(x)=1+\mu g(x)\) with \(g(x)\) satisfying the following conditions: \(g(x)\geq 0\), \(g(x)\in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}^3)\), the set \(\{x\in \mathbb{R}^3:g(x)=0\}\) is bounded and has nonempty interior, and \(\displaystyle \liminf_{|x|\rightarrow \infty}g(x)=1\). These conditions imply that \(V_{\mu}\) represents a potential well in terms of applications in quantum mechanics. The depth of the well is controlled by \(\mu\). Using a priori estimates and approximation methods, the authors show that the system with \(p\in (1,2)\) has a ground state for \(\mu\) large and \(\lambda\) small, while with \(p\in [3,5)\) the system has a nontrivial solution for \(\mu\) large and any \(\lambda>0\). The behavior of the solutions as \(\lambda\rightarrow 0\), \(\mu\rightarrow +\infty\) and \(|x|\rightarrow +\infty\) is also discussed.