A Liouville-type theorem for elliptic equations with singular coefficients in bounded domains (Q2680542)

The authors investigate Liouville-type theorems for elliptic equations with a drift and with a potential posed in bounded domains. Specifically, for a bounded domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n\), the authors consider the following Schrödinger-type operator with singular coefficients: \[ L(u)=\Delta u+\langle b(x),\nabla u\rangle-Q(x)u \quad (x\in \Omega), \] where \(Q\in C^0(\Omega)\), \(Q\geq 0\) and \(b\in C^1(\Omega; \mathbb{R}^n)\). They allow \(Q(x)\) and \(b(x)\) to become unbounded as \(x\to\partial \Omega\); moreover, \(Q\) can vanish in the interior of \(\Omega\). The authors provide conditions on the potential \(Q\) and on the drift term \(b\) which guarantee the validity of a Lioville-type property for the equation \(L(u)=0\) in \(\Omega\); in the sense that \(u\equiv 0\) is the unique bounded solution of this equation. They also show a large class of examples in \(Q(x)\) and \(b(x)\) where their results can be applied. Finally, in the last section, the authors discuss the optimality of their main result by presenting a couple of examples. Indeed, when some hypotheses fail, the elliptic equation possesses infinitely many bounded solutions.