Concentrating solutions for an anisotropic elliptic problem with large exponent (Q2260746)

This paper studies the boundary value problem \[ \nabla (a(x)\nabla u)+a(x)u^p=0,\;\;\;u(x)>0\;\;x\in \Omega,\;\;\;u(x)=0\;\;x\in\partial\Omega, \] where \(\Omega\subset \mathbb R^2\) is a smooth bounded domain, and \(a(x)\) is a smooth positive function on \(\overline{\Omega}\). The focus here is on the limit \(p\rightarrow \infty\). Previous studies concern the case in which \(a(x)\) is constant. Here new phenomena are revealed in the case in which \(a(x)\) is nonconstant. The main result shows that, given a local maximum point of the function \(a(x)\), there exists an arbitrarily large number of solutions as \(p\rightarrow \infty\), concentrating near the maximum point. The proof employs a combination of Lyapunov-Schmidt reduction and variational methods.