Positive solutions for anisotropic singular Dirichlet problems (Q2134970)

Let \(\Omega \subseteq \mathbb{R}^N\) be a bounded domain with a \(C^2\)-boundary \(\partial \Omega\). The authors consider an anisotropic singular Dirichlet problem of the form \[ \begin{cases} -\Delta_{p(z)}u(z)- \Delta_{q(z)}u(z)=\lambda u(z)^{-\eta(z)}+f(z,u(z)) \mbox{ in } \Omega,\\ u|_{\partial \Omega}=0, \, \lambda >0, \, u > 0, \end{cases}\tag{\(\mathrm P_\lambda\)}\] where \(\Delta_{p(z)} u= \operatorname{div}(|D u|^{p(z)-2}D u)\) for all \(u \in W^{1,p(z)}_0(\Omega)\) is the \(p(z)\)-Laplace operator. In the right-hand side, the first (singular) term is parametric with \(\eta \in C(\overline{\Omega})\) and \(0<\eta_-=\min_{\overline{\Omega}} \eta \leq \max_{\overline{\Omega}} \eta =\eta_+<1\) and the second (Caratheodory) term is \((p_+-1)\)-superlinear but does not satisfy the Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz condition. The authors first study the auxiliary purely singular problem related to \((P_\lambda)\) (that is, they consider \((P_\lambda)\) without the second term in the right-hand side) establishing an existence and uniqueness result. Thus, using this solution, they are able to bypass the singularity in \((P_\lambda)\). Finally, using variational tools from the critical point theory together with truncation and comparison techniques, they establish a bifurcation-type theorem describing the changes in the set of positive solutions to \((P_\lambda)\).