Regularity results for the equation \(u_{11}u_{22}=1\) (Q2335347)

The authors study the equation \(\left( u_{11}u_{22}\right) ^{1/2}=1\) in the plane. The main results are as follows. An interior \(C^{2}\)-estimate for solutions is derived (Theorem 1.1): if \(u\in C^{4}\left( B_{1}\right) \) is a solution of \(\left(u_{11}u_{22}\right)^{1/2}=1\) in \(B_{1}\subseteq\mathbb{R}^{2}\), then \(\left\Vert u\right\Vert _{C^{2}\left( B_{1/2}\right) }\leq C\left\Vert u\right\Vert _{L_{\infty }\left( B_{1}\right) }\). As a corollary, an analogue of Liouville's theorem for global solutions with quadratic grows is derived. A function \(w\in C\left(\mathbb{R}^{2}\right) \) is called coordinate-convex on \(\mathbb{R}^{2}\) if \(w\) is convex along coordinate lines. A function \(w\in C^{2}\left(\mathbb{R}^{2}\right) \) is called uniformly coordinate-convex if \(w_{jj}\geq c>0,j=1,2\). A domain \(\Omega \subseteq\mathbb{R}^{2}\) is said to be uniformly coordinate-convex if \(\Omega\) is a connected component of \(\left\{ w<0\right\} \) for some uniformly coordinate-convex \(w\in C^{2}\left(\mathbb{R}^{2}\right)\). The authors prove the classical solvability of the Dirichlet problem for bounded uniformly coordinate-convex domains (Theorem 1.2): for every uniformly coordinate-convex domain \(\Omega \subseteq\mathbb{R}^{2}\) and \(\varphi \in C^{\infty }\left(\mathbb{R}^{2}\right)\), there is a unique solution \(u\in C^{\infty }\left( \Omega\right) \cap C\left( \overline{\Omega }\right) \) of the Dirichlet problem \(\left( u_{11}u_{22}\right) ^{1/2}=1\) in \(\Omega ,\) \(u|_{\partial \Omega }=\varphi \). As a corollary of Theorems 1.1 and 1.2, interior estimates for derivatives of solutions are obtained. Finally, the authors show that the well-known Calabi theorem for solutions of the Monge-Ampère equation does not hold for solutions of \(\left( u_{11}u_{22}\right) ^{1/2}=1\): there are non-quadratic global solutions to the equation \(\left( u_{11}u_{22}\right) ^{1/2}=1\) (Theorem 1.3). In higher dimensions, the authors construct global singular solutions to the analogous equation.