Quasilinear elliptic equations with critical exponents (Q1380888)

The authors study, in a major step of this paper, the following class of quasilinear elliptic problems \[ Lu = \lambda r^{\delta} |u|^{\beta} u + r^{\gamma} |u|^{q - 2}u \text{ in } (0,R),\quad u > 0 \text{ in } (0,R),\;u''(0) = u(R) = 0 \tag{\(Q_\lambda\)} \] with \(Lu \equiv - (r^{\alpha} |u'|^{\beta}u')^{'} \), where \(\lambda \geq 0\) is a parameter, \(\alpha, \beta, \delta, \gamma, q\) are given constants and \(0 < R < \infty\). The main results are related to well known ones by Brézis \& Nirenberg for the case of the Laplace operator and by Egnell for the \(p\)-Laplacian and provide conditions for both existence and nonexistence of solutions of \((Q_\lambda)\). The authors also explore the role of Sobolev type critical exponents through an inequality due to Bliss in a variational setting associated with \((Q_\lambda)\) and observe that \(k\)-Hessian type operators acting on radial functions are included in this class of operators \(L\). Other sorts of problems involving \(L\) are studied, for instance, the eigenvalue problem \[ Lu = \lambda r^{\delta} |u|^{\beta} u \text{ in } (0,R), \quad u''(0) = u(R) = 0 \] as well as regularity for solutions of \[ Lu = r^{\theta} f(r,u) \text{ in } (0,R),\quad u''(0) = u(R) = 0 . \]