A Liouville-type theorem for very weak solutions of nonlinear partial differential equations (Q1366584)

Let us consider the variational equation in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) \[ \text{div} \Biggl(a(x)F'(|\nabla u|) \frac{\nabla u}{|\nabla u|}\Biggr)=0, \] where \(0<\lambda_0\leq a(x)\leq \Lambda_0<\infty\) and \(F\) is a convex increasing function verifying suitable conditions. We prove that the very weak solutions of such equation, whose modulus of the gradient belongs to a suitable Orlicz space, must be constant almost everywhere. The result applies, in particular, to the case in which \(F\) is the power \(F(t)=t^p\) \((p>1)\), i.e., to the variational equation in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) \[ \text{div} (a(x)|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)=0. \]