On some singular nonlinear problems for monotone elliptic operators (Q2319586)

The author studies a class of problems associated to nonlinear operators of the \(p\)-Laplacian type with source term having a singularity at the origin. More specifically, let \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}^N\) with \(N\ge 1\) and \(1<p<\infty\). Let also \(a(x,\xi):\Omega\times\mathbb{R}^N\rightarrow\mathbb{R}^N\) be a Carathéodory function satisfying certain conditions and define, for \(u,v\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\), \[ \langle Au,v\rangle=\int_{\Omega}a(x,\nabla u)\cdot \nabla v dx. \] The goal of the paper is to investigate existence of solutions of problems of the type \[ \langle A u,v\rangle = \langle \mu, H(u)v\rangle \qquad \forall v\in V, \] where \(u\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\), \(\mu\in W^{-1,p'}(\Omega)\) and \(V\) is an appropriate space that allows for the equality above to hold in the sense of distributions. The author tackles this using methods inspired by [The author and \textit{L. M. De Cave}, Atti Accad. Naz. Lincei, Cl. Sci. Fis. Mat. Nat., IX. Ser., Rend. Lincei, Mat. Appl. 29, No. 3, 487--510 (2018; Zbl 1395.35089)]. All the results obtained include the case of operators of \(p\)-Laplacian type, that is, of the form \[ -\nabla\cdot(b(x)|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u), \] where \(b\in L^{\infty}(\Omega)\) is a positive function, uniformly bounded away from \(0\). To describe in more detail the results proved, in Section 2 the author assumes \(\Omega\) is bounded and \(N\le 2\) or \(p>\frac{2N}{N+2}\). Under these conditions, if \(\hat{\mu}\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\), \(\varepsilon>0\), there exists a unique solution \(u_{\varepsilon}\) to \[ \varepsilon Au_{\varepsilon}+u_{\varepsilon}=\hat{\mu} \text{ in } \Omega, \qquad u_{\varepsilon}\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega). \] Moreover, \(u_{\varepsilon}\rightharpoonup \hat{\mu}\) in \(W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\) and \(Au_{\varepsilon}\rightharpoonup A\hat{\mu}\) in \(W^{-1,p'}(\Omega)\). Under stronger assumptions, the convergences are proved to be strong. In the following section the author considers the case where \(\Omega\) and \(H\) are bounded. It is also assumed that \(H\) is Lipschitz and such that \((sH(s))'\in L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R})\). Let \(\mu\in W^{-1,p'}(\Omega)\) with \(p>\frac{2N}{N+2}\) and \(\hat{\mu}\in W^{-1,p'}_0(\Omega)\) be the unique solution to \[ \int_{\Omega}a(x,\nabla \hat{\mu})\cdot \nabla vdx=\langle \mu, v\rangle, \qquad \forall v\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega). \] Under certain additional conditions, the author proves existence of a solution \(u\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\) of \[ \langle A u, v\rangle=\langle A\hat{\mu}, H(u)v\rangle, \qquad \forall v\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\cap L^{\infty}(\Omega). \] If \(\mu\) is a nonnegative measure and assuming \(H(s)\ge 0\) \(\forall s\le 0\), the author also proves \(u\ge 0\). Furthermore, assume \(\mu\in W^{-1,p'}(\Omega)\) is a nonnegative measure. Consider \(H_1, H_2\) satisfying appropriate conditions, and \(u_1\) and \(u_2\) to be the corresponding solutions from above. If \(H_1\ge H_2\) and \(H_1\) or \(H_2\) is nonincreasing, then \(u_1\ge u_2\). Consequently, if \(\mu\) is a nonnegative measure and \(H\) is nonincreasing, the solution \(u\) is unique. In Section 4, the author considers the case when \(\Omega\) is bounded and \(H\) is unbounded, satisfying certain additional conditions, and also proves existence of a solution. The proof is inspired by [loc. cit.]. Finally, the case \(\Omega\) unbounded is considered. Here it is assumed \(H\) is nonincreasing, bounded, Lipschitz, such that \(H(s)\ge 0\) \(\forall s\le 0\) and \((sH(s))'\in L^{\infty}(\Omega)\). Under certain assumptions on \(a\), the author proves existence of a solution \(u\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\), \(u\ge 0\) to \[ \langle Au,v\rangle=\langle A\hat{\mu},H(u)v\rangle, \qquad \forall v\in W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\cap L^{\infty}(\Omega). \] This theorem is also extended in the case when \(H\) is unbounded near the origin.