Double phase problems with variable growth (Q1626691)

The authors study the nonlinear double phase eigenvalue problem \[ \begin{cases} &-\operatorname{div}\, (\phi (x,|Du|)Du) - \operatorname{div}\, (\psi( x,|Du|)|Du|) + w(x)\theta(x,|u|)u = \\ &\lambda (|u|^{r-2}u + |u|^{s-2}u)\quad \text{in }\Omega,\\ &u = 0 \quad \text{on } \partial\Omega,\tag{1} \end{cases} \] on a smooth bounded domain \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^N\), \(N\geq 2\), where \(w\) is an indefinite potential and \(\lambda\) is a real parameter, under suitable hypotheses on the functions \(\phi\), \(\psi\) and \(\theta\), which most notably are allowed to grow in the second argument as an \(x\)-dependent function of \(p\). Thus multiple concrete problems are covered by this abstract framework, including the \(p(x)\)-Laplacian \[ \Delta_{p(x)} = \text{div}\, (|Du|^{p(x)-2}Du), \] the generalized mean curvarture operator \[ \text{div}\, \left[(1+|Du|^2)^{(p(x)-2)/2} \right] \] and a differential operator describing a generalized capillary phenomenon \[ \text{div}\, \left[\left(1+\frac{|Du|^{p(x)}}{\sqrt{1+|Du|^{2p(x)}}} \right)|Du|^{p(x)-2}Du \right] \] The authors introduce two critical parameters \(\lambda_\ast \leq \lambda^\ast\), which are both given as (two different) Rayleigh quotients of certain integral expressions related to the nonlinear equation (1); their main result states that, under a number of technical hypotheses on the functions and parameters involved, all values \(\lambda \geq \lambda^\ast\) are eigenvalues of (1), while no value \(\lambda < \lambda_\ast\) is an eigenvalue. (Here eigenvalues are understood in the usual weak sense for nonlinear operators, and the presence of these two parameters may be explained by the non-homogeneous nature of the problem.) The authors also study how \(\lambda^\ast\) depends on the weight \(w \in L^\infty (\Omega)\) and show in a second main result that for any nonempty, bounded, closed subset \(\mathcal{W}\) of \(L^\infty (\Omega)\) there exists some \(w_0 \in \mathcal{W}\) achieving \[ \lambda^\ast (w_0) = \inf_{w \in L^\infty(\Omega)} \lambda^\ast (w). \]