Phragmén-Lindelöf theorems for nonlinear elliptic equations (Q1103104)

Let \(\Omega\subset {\mathbb{R}}^ n,\) \(n\geq 2\), be an unbounded domain and \(u\in W^{1,2}_{loc}\cap L^{\infty}_{loc}(\Omega)\) be a weak solution of the differential inequality \[ \sum_{i,j}(\partial /\partial x_ i)(a_{ij}(x)\partial u/\partial x_ j)+\sum_{i}b_ i(\partial u/\partial x_ i)\geq f\quad (u), \] where \((a_{ij})\) are uniformly elliptic, Hölder continuous at infinity, \(b_ i=O(| x|^{-1})\) for \(| x| \to \infty\), and \(f: {\mathbb{R}}\) \(+\to {\mathbb{R}}\) \(+\) is non-decreasing and locally Lipschitz such that \(\lim_{a\to 0}\int^{\infty}_{a}(\int^{t}_{a}f(s)ds)^{-1/2} dt<+\infty\). Then it is shown that \(u\leq 0\) on \(\partial \Omega\) implies \(u\leq 0\) in \(\Omega\). The author also proves similar results for operators not in divergence form and for the p-harmonic operator div(\(| \nabla u|\) p \(\nabla u)\). Moreover, he gives an existence theorem for the Dirichlet problem with boundary values \(+\infty\). The proofs are based on a clever construction of appropriate supersolutions.