Classification of solutions of a critical Hardy--Sobolev operator (Q2493082)

The authors analyze positive solutions for \(-\Delta u= \frac{u^{\frac{n}{n-2}}}{| y| ^t}\) in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) where \(\mathbb{R}^n=\mathbb{R}^k \times\mathbb{R}^{n-k}\), \(n> k \geq 2\) and a point \(x \in \mathbb{R}^n\) is denoted by \(x=(y,z) \in \mathbb{R}^k \times \mathbb{R}^{n-k}\). First they prove that all the positive finite energy solutions have cylindric symmetry, using a moving planes technique. But the main contribution regards the case \(t=1\), when, combining the symmetry result and an identity due to Jerison and Lee, they manage to identify all such solutions through an explicit formula. As a consequence they obtain the best constant and extremals of a related Hardy-Sobolev inequality.