Nodal solutions for \(p\)-Laplace equations with critical growth. (Q1400281)

This paper is concerned with the existence and nodal character of the nontrivial solutions for the following quasilinear elliptic equations involving critical Sobolev exponents: \[ -\sum^N_{i=1} {\partial\over\partial x_i} \Biggl(|\nabla u|^{p-2} {\partial u\over\partial x_i}\Biggr)+| u|^{p-2} u=| u|^{p^*- 2}u+ f(u),\;u\in W^{1,p}_r(\mathbb{R}^N),\tag{1} \] Where \(p\geq 2\) and \(p^*= {Np\over (N-p)}\) is the critical Sobolev exponent for the embedding \(W^{1,p}_r(\mathbb{R}^N)\hookrightarrow L^{p^*}(\mathbb{R}^N)\). The function \(f\) satisfies some conditions given by \((f_1)\), \((f_2)\), \((f_3)\) in the paper. The main results obtained in this paper are that there exists at least a pair of nontrivial solutions for (1) provided that \(N\geq p^2\) and there exists at least a pair of nontrivial solutions \(u^+_k\), \(u^-_k\) of (1) for each \(k\in \mathbb{N}\cup 0\) such that both \(u^+_k\) and \(u^-_k\) prosses exactly \(k\) nodes provided that \((f(t))''\geq 0\) for \(N\geq p^2(p-1)+ p\).