Riccati inequality and oscillation criteria for PDE with \(p\)-Laplacian (Q2491558)

Oscillation criteria are obtained for classical solutions of \[ \text{div}(A(x)\|Du\|^{p-2}Du)+b(x)|u|^{p-2}u=0 \] in an exterior domain \(\Omega=\Omega(1)=\{x\in\mathbb R^n\,:\, \|x\|>1\}\), when \(p>1\) and there exists a Hölder exponent \(\alpha\in(0,1)\) such that (a) the coefficients of the real symmetric positive defined matrix \(A\) are of class \(C^{1,\alpha}_{\text{loc}}(\Omega)\), and the smallest eigenvalue \(\lambda_{\min}=\lambda_{\min}(x)\) verifies the inequality \[ \min_{\|x\|=r}\dfrac{\lambda_{\min}(x)}{\|A(x)\|^{p'}}\geq \lambda(r),\qquad r>1, \] for some positive radial function \(\lambda\) of class \(C^1[1,\infty)\), with \(p'\) denoting the Hölder conjugate exponent of \(p\); (b) \(b\) is of class \(C^{\alpha}_{\text{loc}}(\Omega)\). The main result is applied to several interesting examples in which the technical assumptions required simplify. For instance the linear equation \(\Delta u+\gamma\|x\|^{-2}u=0\) in \(\Omega\subset \mathbb R^2\) is oscillatory whenever \(\gamma>3/2\).