On a critical Schrödinger system in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) with steep potential wells (Q2288393)

In this paper the authors study the two-component elliptic system \begin{align*} \begin{cases} \Delta u -(\lambda a(x)+a_0 )u+u^3+\beta v^2u=0 & \text{in } \mathbb{R}^4,\\ \Delta v -(\lambda b(x)+b_0 )v+v^3+\beta u^2v=0 & \text{in } \mathbb{R}^4,\\ (u,v) \in H^1(\mathbb{R}^4) \times H^1(\mathbb{R}^4), \end{cases} \end{align*} where \(a_0, b_0 \in \mathbb{R}\) are constants, \(\lambda>0\) and \(\beta \in \mathbb{R}\) are parameters and \(a, b\) are potentials. Based on variational tools, the authors prove the existence and nonexistence of general ground state solutions (maybe semi-trivial) and ground state solutions of the system above under some further conditions on the potentials \(a,b\) and the parameters \(\lambda, \beta\). Moreover, using new ideas different from that in the literature, the phenomenon of phase separation of ground state solutions of the system above is also obtained without any symmetry conditions.