Positive and negative solutions of a quasi-linear elliptic equation by a mountain pass method and truncature techniques (Q1887983)

The authors consider the boundary value problem (*) \(-\Delta u = f(x,u,\nabla u)\) in \(\Omega\), \(u=0\) on \(\partial\Omega\), where \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^N\) is a bounded domain. The function \(f\) is superlinear at \(u=0\) and as \(| u| \to\infty\), satisfies the growth restriction \(| f(x,t,\xi)| \leq a(1+| t| ^p)(1+| \xi| ^r)\), where \(1<p<(N+2)/(N-2)\), \(0<r<1\), and some additional conditions (Lipschitz continuity with certain bounds on the Lipschitz constants). The main result shows that (*) has a positive and a negative solution. The argument is based on an iteration procedure. More specifically, assuming \(u_{n-1}\) has been found, the mountain pass theorem together with a truncation argument is used in order to obtain a solution \(u_n\) to the problem \(-\Delta u = f(x,u,\nabla u_{n-1})\) in \(\Omega\), \(u=0\) on \(\partial\Omega\) (which is variational since \(u_{n-1}\) has been fixed). Starting with some \(u_0\), this procedure generates a sequence \((u_n)\) such that \(u_n\to u>0\) in \(W^{1,2}_0(\Omega)\) and \(u\) solves (*). An extension of the above result is also given whose consequence is that if \(\Omega\) is a domain with sufficiently small diameter, then also some values \(r\geq 1\) are admitted.