Existence of weak solutions to degenerate \(p\)-Laplacian equations and integral formulas (Q2411365)

The authors consider the problem of finding \((u,\vec g) \in W\) which satisfy for all \((\xi,\vec \zeta) \in W\) \[ \int_\Omega |\vec g|^{p-2}\vec g \cdot \vec \zeta \text{ d} x + \int_\Omega f(x,u)\xi \text{ d}x = 0, \] where \(\vec g\) is a generalization of the weak gradient of \(u\) and \(\vec \zeta\) should be thought of as the gradient of \(\xi\). The space \(W\) may be, for example, a Sobolev space on a sub-Riemannian manifold. The authors show that under various very general conditions a solution to the problem exists. They use methods from the calculus of variations, the mountain pass lemma, and the concentration compactness principle II of Lions.