Interior and boundary \(W^{1,q}\)-estimates for quasi-linear elliptic equations of Schrödinger type (Q2181279)

The authors consider the \(p\)-Laplace equation \(-\operatorname{div}\mathbf{a}(x,Du)+V\left\vert u\right\vert ^{p-2}u=- \operatorname{div}(\vert F\vert^{p-2}F)\) posed in an open and bounded domain \(\Omega \) of \(\mathbb{R}^{n}\), \(n\geq 2\), where \(\mathbf{a}:\mathbb{R}^{n}\times \mathbb{R}^{n}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^{n}\) is a Carathéodory function (\(\mathbf{a}\) is measurable in the \(x\)-variable and differentiable in the \(\xi \)-variable), which further satisfies growth and ellipticity conditions, \(V\) is a non-negative potential which at least satisfies \(V\in L^{n/p}(\Omega )\) if \(p < n\) and \(V\in L^{t}(\Omega )\) for some \(t>1\) if \(p\geq n\), and \(F\in L^{q}\). The homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions \(u=0\) are imposed on \(\partial \Omega \). The authors introduce a further \((\delta ,R)\)-vanishing condition on \(\mathbf{a}\) and a further \((\delta ,R)\)-Reifenberg flatness property of the domain \(\Omega \). The potential \(V:\mathbb{R}^{n}\rightarrow \lbrack 0,\infty )\) is supposed to belong to the class \(\mathcal{B}\gamma \) for some \(\gamma >1\) of functions in \(L_{\mathrm{loc}}^{\gamma }(\mathbb{R}^{n})\) which satisfy the reverse Hölder inequality \(\left( \frac{1}{\left\vert B\right\vert }\int_{B}V^{\gamma }dx\right) ^{\frac{1}{\gamma }}\leq b_{\gamma }\left( \frac{1}{\left\vert B\right\vert }\int_{B}Vdx\right) \) for every ball \(B\subset \mathbb{R}^{n}\) where \(b_{\gamma }\) a positive constant. They define the notion of weak solution to this problem through the variational formulation \(\int_{\Omega }\mathbf{a}(x,Du)\cdot D\varphi dx+\int_{\Omega }V\left\vert u\right\vert ^{p-2}u\varphi dx=\int_{\Omega }\left\vert F\right\vert ^{p-2}F\cdot D\varphi dx\) for every \(\varphi \in W_{0}^{1,p}(\Omega )\). The main result of the paper proves that if \(u\in W_{0}^{1,p}(\Omega )\) is a weak solution to the problem and if \(V\in \mathcal{B}_{\gamma }\) for some \(\gamma \in \lbrack \frac{n}{p},n)\) if \(p<n\) and for some \(\gamma \in (1,n)\) if \(p\geq n\), then for \(p\leq q<\gamma ^{\ast }(p-1)\), there exists \(\delta =\delta (n,p,L,\nu)>0\) such that if \(\mathbf{a}\) is \((\delta ,R)\)-vanishing and \(\Omega \) is a \((\delta ,R)\) -Reifenberg flat domain for some \(R\in (0,1)\), then for any \(x_{0}\in \Omega\) and \(r\in (0,\frac{R}{4}]\) satisfying \((4r)^{p-\frac{n}{\gamma }}\left\Vert V\right\Vert _{L^{\gamma }(\Omega _{4r}(x_{0}))}\leq 1\), \[\begin{split}&\left( \frac{1}{\left\vert \Omega _{r}(x_{0})\right\vert } \int_{\Omega _{r}(x_{0})} \left\vert Du\right\vert ^{q} + \chi _{\{q<p\gamma \}}\left[ V^{\frac{1}{p}}\left\vert u\right\vert \right] ^{q}dx\right) ^{1/q} \\&\leq c\left( \frac{1}{\left\vert \Omega _{4r}(x_{0})\right\vert } \int_{\Omega _{4r}(x_{0})}\left\vert Du\right\vert ^{q} + \left[ V^{\frac{1}{p}}\left\vert u\right\vert \right] ^{p}dx\right) ^{1/p} + c\left( \frac{1}{\left\vert \Omega _{4r}(x_{0})\right\vert } \int_{\Omega _{4r}(x_{0})}\left\vert F\right\vert ^{q}dx\right) ^{1/q}.\end{split}\] This allows to prove a bound for \(\Vert Du\Vert _{L^{q}(\Omega )} + \chi _{\{q<p\gamma \}}\Vert V^{\frac{1}{p}}u\Vert _{L^{q}(\Omega )}\) in terms of \(\left\Vert F\right\Vert _{L^{q}(\Omega )}\). For the proof, the authors first analyze the properties of the class \(\mathcal{B}_{\gamma }\) introducing the Muckenhoupt classes \(A_{p}\) and \(A_{\infty }\). They recall the local Calderón-Zygmund estimates they obtained in [Rev. Mat. Iberoam. 35, No. 4, 1053--1078 (2019; Zbl 1428.35140)], for elliptic equations of \(p\)-Laplace type involving mixed data. They recall the local boundedness (up to boundaries) for weak solutions to the \(p\)-Laplace equation with \(F=0\). They first prove the main result assuming \(F=0\). They finally use comparison estimates between the weak solution to the \(p\)-Laplace equation and weak solutions to localized \(p\)-Laplace equations with \(F=0\) and the exit-time argument introduced by \textit{G. Mingione} in [Ann. Sc. Norm. Super. Pisa, Cl. Sci. (5) 6, No. 2, 195--261 (2007; Zbl 1178.35168)].