Yamabe type equations with a sign-changing nonlinearity, and the prescribed curvature problem (Q264470)

The authors investigate the prescribed scalar curvature problem on a non-compact Riemannian manifold \((M,\langle,\rangle),\) namely the existence of a conformal deformation of the metric \(\langle,\rangle\), realizing a given function \(\tilde{s}(x)\) as its scalar curvature. In particular, the work focuses on the case when \(\tilde{s}(x)\) changes its sign. The main results are two new existence results requiring minimal assumptions on the underlying manifold, and ensuring a control on the stretching factor of the conformal deformation in such a way that the conformally deformed metric be bi-Lipschitz equivalent to the original one. The topological-geometrical requirements needed are all encoded in the spectral properties of the standard and conformal Laplacians of \(M.\) The techniques used can be extended to investigate the existence of entire positive solutions of quasilinear equations of the type \[ \Delta_p u+a(x)u^{p-1}-b(x)u^\sigma=0 \] with the \(p\)-Laplacian, where \(\sigma>p-1>0\), \(a\), \(b\in L^\infty_{\operatorname{loc}}(M)\) with sign-changing \(b\). Moreover, some new insights are proposed on the subcriticality theory for the Schrödinger type operator \[ Q'_V: \varphi \to -\Delta_p\varphi -a(x)| \varphi|^{p-2}\varphi. \] The authors prove also sharp Hardy-type inequalities in some geometrically relevant cases, notably for minimal submanifolds of the hyperbolic space.