On certain degenerate and singular elliptic PDEs I: nondivergence form operators with unbounded drifts and applications to subelliptic equations (Q1680445)

The author proves a Harnack inequality for nonnegative strong solutions to degenerate and singular nonvariational elliptic partial differential equations in the presence of unbounded drifts. The results contained in the paper extend the Harnack inequality for the linearized Monge-Ampère equation proved in a seminal paper by Caffarelli and Gutiérrez, and theses results are related, although under different hypotheses, to a recent work by N.Q. Le. These results hold for the convex functions \(|x|^p\) with \(p \geq 2\), so they hold, for instance, also for subelliptic Grushin and Grushin-like operators and for a nondivergence-form subelliptic operator arising from the geometric theory of several complex variables introduced by A. Montanari. From these results a very deep remark arises: the Monge-Ampère quasi-metric structure can be regarded as an alternative to the usual Carnot-Carathódory metric.