On the Gibbons' conjecture for equations involving the \(p\)-Laplacian (Q2134207)

The equation \[ -\operatorname{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)= f(u)\quad\text{in }\mathbb{R}^N \] is considered in the range \[ N\ge 2,\quad\frac{2N+2}{N+2}< p< 2. \] Here \(f\in C^1([-1,1])\) has at most a finite number of zeros, \(f(-1)= f(+1)\) and \(f^1(\pm 1)<0\). For example, \(f(u)= u(1-u^2)\) will do. Assume that \(u\in C^1(\mathbb{R}^N)\) is a weak bounded solution in \(\mathbb{R}^N\), say \(|u|\le 1\). The main result is the following: If \[ \lim_{y\to\pm\infty} u(x_1,\dots,x_{N-1}, y)=\pm 1 \] uniformly with respect to \((x_1,\dots, x_{N-1})\in \mathbb{R}^{N-1}\), then \[ \frac{\partial u}{\partial x_n}= 0\ (k=1,2,\dots, N-1)\quad\text{and}\quad \frac{\partial u}{\partial y}>0\quad\text{in }\mathbb{R}^N. \] In other words, \(u\) depends only on the last coordinate \(y\) and is strictly monotone in \(y\). In the case \(p=2\) one has \[ u(x_1,\dots, N_N)= \tanh\left(\frac{x_N-a}{\sqrt{2}}\right). \] A difficulty is the lack of an unrestricted strong comparison principle for the operator \(\operatorname{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)\). The moving plane method of Alexandrov is central in this work.