On a class of semilinear elliptic problems near critical growth (Q1384250)

The paper is concerned with the semilinear boundary value problem \[ (-1)^m\Delta^mu = f(x,u)\text{ in }\Omega,\qquad B_{m}(u)=0\text{ on }\partial\Omega,\tag{*} \] \(m=1\) or 2. Here \(\Omega\) is a smooth bounded domain in \({\mathbb R}^{N}\), \(B_{m}(u)=0\) is the Dirichlet (if \(m=1\)) or the Navier (if \(m=2\)) boundary condition, \(f(x,u)=o(u)\) as \(u\to 0\) and \(f\) grows superlinearly as \(| u| \to\infty\). Solutions of (*) correspond to critical points of a corresponding functional \(I_{m}\), and it follows from the Mountain Pass Theorem that there exists a sequence \((u_{n})\) such that \(I_{m}'(u_{n})\to 0\) and \(I_{m}(u_{n})\to c>0\). The main result of the paper asserts that if the nonlinearity grows at a rate close to (but slower than) the critical, then (*) has a solution \(u\neq 0\). Since the usual growth condition \(| f(x,u)| \leq C_{1}+C_{2}| u| ^{p-1}\), \(2<p<2N/(N-2m)\), may not be satisfied, it is not clear whether \(I_{m}\) satisfies the Palais-Smale condition in \(H^1_{0}(\Omega)\cap H^m(\Omega)\). This difficulty is overcome by working in a suitable Orlicz-Sobolev space.