Existence of cylindrically symmetric ground states to a nonlinear curl-curl equation with non-constant coefficients (Q1687849)

The paper is concerned with the existence of solutions \(U:\mathbb{R}^3\to\mathbb{R}^3\) of the nonlinear curl-curl problem \[ \nabla\times\nabla\times U+V(x)U=f(x,|U|^2)U\quad\text{in }\mathbb{R}^3. \] It is required that \(V\in L^\infty(\mathbb{R}^3)\) and \(f:\mathbb{R}^3\times [0,\infty)\to[0,\infty)\) are cylindrically symmteric, i.e., \(V(x)= V(r,x_3)\) and \(f(x)= f(r,x_3)\) with \(r=\sqrt{x^2_1+x^2_2}\). Under several additional growth and symmetry assumptions on \(V\) and \(f\) the existence of a solution of the form \[ U(x)=u(r,x_3) \begin{pmatrix} -x_2\\x_1\\ 0 \end{pmatrix}\quad\text{satisfying } u(r,-x_3)=u(r,x_3) \] is obtained. The result applies to Kerr type nonlinearities \(f(x,|U|^2)U=\Gamma (r, x_3)|U|^{p-1}U\) with subcritial \(p\in(1,5)\), and \(\Gamma\in L^\infty\), \(\mathrm{ess\, inf}\,\Gamma>0\), \(\Gamma\) Steiner symmetric with respect to \(x_3\). Concerning \(V\) it is sufficient that \(V\geq0\) and \(\liminf_{|x|\to\infty} V(x)>0\).