An elliptic problem with degenerate coercivity and a singular quadratic gradient lower order term (Q428407)

The author studies a Dirichlet problem for an elliptic equation in the variable \(u\) with degenerate coercivity and a singular lower order term with natural growth with respect to the gradient. Specifically, the lower order term has a quadratic growth with respect to the gradient \(\nabla u\) and is singular in the variable \(u\). The known term of the equation is a positive function belonging to some Lebesgue space. The authors show that, even if the lower order term is singular, it has some regularizing effects on the solutions. In the literature there are several papers where the presence of lower order terms can have a regularizing effect on the solutions. \textit{L. Boccardo} [ESAIM, Control Optim. Calc. Var. 14, No. 3, 411--426 (2008; Zbl 1147.35034)] and the author [Rend. Mat. Appl., VII. Ser. 27, No. 3--4, 299--314 (2007; Zbl 1147.35043)] have considered three kinds of lower order terms for elliptic problems with degenerate coercivity. Let us point out that as basic idea to prove the existence of solutions to the original Dirichlet problem the author uses well posed approximating problems and shows that the solutions ``\(u_n\)'' of these problems satisfy some a priori estimates.