Non-uniformly elliptic equations with non-uniformly \(p\)-superlinear nonlinearities. (Q2343875)

The paper under review deals with the Dirichlet problem for non-uniformly elliptic equations with non-uniformly \(p\)-superlinear nonlinearities of the type \[ \begin{cases} -\operatorname{div}\big (a(x,\nabla u(x))\big)=f(x,u(x)) & \text{in }\Omega,\\ u(x)=0 & \text{on }\partial \Omega, \end{cases} \] where \(\Omega \subset \mathbb R^N\) is a bounded domain and \[ | a(x,\xi)| \leq c\big ( a_0(x)+a_1(x)| \xi | ^{p-1}\big) \] with suitable functions \(a_0\geq 0\) and \(a_1\geq 1.\) Let \(A(x,\xi)\) be a measurable function on \(\Omega \times \mathbb R^N\), such that \(A(x,0)=0\) and \( \partial_\xi A(x,\xi)=a(x,\xi).\) The author assumes that \(A(x,\xi)\) is \(p\)-uniformly convex, i.e., \[ A(x,t\xi_1+(1-t)\xi_2)+k_1 a_1(x)| \xi_1-\xi_2| ^p\leq t A(x,\xi_1)+(1-t)A(x,\xi_2), \] \(p\)-subhomogeneous, i.e., \[ 0\leq \xi a(x,\xi)\leq p A(x,\xi), \] and \[ A(x,\xi)\geq k_0 a_1(x)| \xi | ^p. \] By introducing the notion of pseudo-uniform convexity and imposing suitable assumptions on the free term \(f(x,\xi)\), the non-uniformly \(p\)-Laplacian problems are studied when \(1 < p < 2\), obtaining results on existence of nontrivial solutions.