Existence through convexity for the truncated Laplacians (Q2664146)

The authors study the Dirichlet problem in a bounded, convex domain \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^N\), with zero boundary data, for truncated Laplacians \(\mathcal{P}_k^{\pm}\). These are degenerate elliptic operators, for \(k<N\), defined by the upper or lower partial sum of \(k\) eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix. More specifically, for an \(N\times N\) symmetric matrix \(X\), let \[ \lambda_1(X)\le \lambda_2(X)\le \ldots \le \lambda_N(X) \] be the ordered eigenvalues of \(X\). Given \(k\in[1,N]\) integer, let \[ \mathcal{P}_k^-(D^2u)=\sum_{i=1}^k\lambda_i(D^2u), \ \mathcal{P}_k^+(D^2u)=\sum_{i=1}^k\lambda_{N+1-i}(D^2u). \] The Dirichlet problem considered is \[ \begin{cases} \mathcal{P}_k^+(D^2u)=f(x) \text{ in } \Omega\\ u=0 \text{ on } \partial\Omega. \end{cases}\] The authors obtain a necessary and sufficient condition for existence of a solution for general inhomogeneous term \(f\) in terms of the flatness of the domain. As a consequence, it is shown that the strict convexity of the domain is not sufficient for the solvability of the Dirichlet problem. The solvability of the Dirichlet problem for the operator \(\mathcal{P}_k^+\) with lower order term is analyzed when the domain is strictly convex. The authors obtain an existence result with regard to the principal eigenvalue for the Dirichlet problem with zero-th order term for \(\mathcal{P}_1^+\). A non-existence result is also shown for the operator \(\mathcal{P}_k^+\) with first order term, when the domain has a boundary portion which is almost flat. Finally, the authors study the Dirichlet problem when the domain is a ball, assuming a constant inhomogeneous term and a possibly sign-changing first-order term.