Symmetry of separable functions and its applications to Choquard type equations (Q2278105)

The aim of the paper is to develop a new method to study the symmetry and monotonicity of solutions to elliptic equations. Let \(H\subset\mathbb R^N\) be an open half-space. For \(x\in\mathbb R^N\), let \(\sigma_Hx\) denote the symmetric point of \(x\) with respect to the hyperplane \(\partial H\). Then, according to the maximum principle, a solution \(u\) to an elliptic equation keeps the larger value on \(H\) or on \(\mathbb R^N\setminus H\), respectively. The idea that sufficiently many such hyperplanes can lead to symmetry and monotonicity of the solution motivated the authors to introduce the concept of of separable functions as follows: Given \(\Omega\subset\mathbb R^N\), a function \(u:\Omega\to\mathbb R\) is separable in \(\Omega\) if for any open half-space \(H\) in \(\mathbb R^N\) such that \(\sigma_H(H\cap\Omega)=\Omega\setminus cl(H)\) either \(u(x)\ge u(\sigma_Hx)\) for all \(x\in H\cap\Omega\) or \(u(x)\le u(\sigma_Hx)\) for all \(x\in H\cap\Omega\). The authors study the separable functions and prove their symmetry and monotonicity; the proof does not rely on the concrete equations or properties of specific solutions. After that, they apply the main results to equations of Choquard type to obtain the axial symmetry and monotonicity of all the positive ground states in a ball and in the whole space, respectively.