An existence result for a problem with critical growth and lack of strict convexity (Q1021394)

Let \(\Omega\) be a bounded open set in \({\mathbb R}^N\) (\(N\geq 4\)) and let \(2^*=2N/(N-2)\) denote the critical Sobolev exponent. This paper is devoted to the study of the nonlinear elliptic equation \(-\mathrm{div } (\Psi '(\nabla u))=\lambda u+|u|^{2^*-2}u\) in \(\Omega\), under the Dirichlet boundary condition \(u=0\) on \(\partial\Omega\). It is assumed that \(\lambda\) is a real parameter and \(\Psi :{\mathbb R}^N\rightarrow {\mathbb R}\) is a convex function of class \(C^1\). Let \(\lambda_1\) denote the first eigenvalue of the Laplace operator \((-\Delta )\) in \(H^1_0(\Omega)\). The main result of the present paper establishes that the above nonlinear boundary value problem has at least a nontrivial and nonnegative weak solution, provided that \(0<\lambda <\lambda_1\). The same result holds true if either \(N\geq 5\) or \(N\geq 4\) and \(\lambda\) is not an eigenvalue of the Laplace operator with homogeneous Dirichlet boundary condition. The proofs rely essentially on variational methods.