Existence results for a Kirchhoff type equation in Orlicz-Sobolev spaces (Q2360534)

Consider the boundary value problem: \[ -M\big(L(u)\big)\big(\text{div}(a(x,|\nabla u|)\nabla u)- a(x,|u|)u\big)=\lambda|u|^{q(x)-2}u\text{ in } \Omega,\quad \frac{\partial u}{\partial\nu}=0\text{ on }\partial\Omega, \] where \(\Omega\subset\mathbb R^N\), \(N\geq3\), is a bounded domain with a smooth boundary \(\partial\Omega\), \(\frac{\partial u}{\partial\nu}\) is the outer unit normal derivative, \(\lambda\) is a positive parameter, \(q\in C(\overline\Omega)\), \(q(x)>1\). It is assumed that the mapping \(\varphi:\overline\Omega\times\mathbb R\to\mathbb R\), defined by \(\varphi(x,t)=a(x,|t|)t\) if \(t\neq0\) and \(\varphi(x,0)=0\), is such that for all \(x\in\Omega\), \(\varphi(x,\cdot)\) is an odd, strictly increasing homeomorphism from \(\mathbb R\) onto \(\mathbb R\), the function \(M(t):\mathbb R^+\to\mathbb R^+\) is nondecreasing and continuous, and the functional \(L\) is defined by \[ L(u)=\int_\Omega\big(\Phi(x,|\nabla u|)+\Phi(x,|u|)\big)dx, \] where \[ \Phi(x,t)=\int_0^t\varphi(x,s)ds,\quad x\in\overline\Omega,\quad t\geq0. \] A particular case represented by \(a(x,t)=t^{p(x)-2}\) with \(p\in C(\overline\Omega)\) corresponds to the problem with the \(p(x)\)-Laplacian \(\Delta_{p(\cdot)}=\text{div}(|\nabla u|^{p(\cdot)-2}\nabla u)\). Assuming that \(\Phi\) satisfies \(\Phi(x,t)\geq C|t|^{p(x)}\) with a positive constant \(C\) and a function \(p\in C(\overline\Omega)\), \(1<\min_\Omega p(x)\leq\max_\Omega p(x)<N\), the authors study the existence of nontrivial weak solutions to the above problem in the corresponding generalized Orlicz-Sobolev (or Musielak-Sobolev) space based on the generalized Orlicz space \[ L^\Phi(\Omega)=\bigg\{u:\Omega\to\mathbb R:\lim_{\lambda\to0^+}\int_\Omega \Phi(x,\lambda|u(x)|)dx=0\bigg\} \] with the Luxemburg-type norm \[ \|u\|=\inf\bigg\{\mu\geq0:\int_\Omega\Phi(x,|u(x)|/\mu)dx\leq1\bigg\}. \]