Fully nonlinear elliptic equations and the dini condition (Q4385685)

The author investigates the interior regularity and local solvability of nonlinear, uniformly elliptic equations of the form (*) \(F(D^2u)=f\) in \(\Omega\), where \(\Omega \) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^n\), \(f\in C^0 (\Omega)\), \(u\in C^2 (\Omega)\), and \(F\) is a concave functional on the space of real symmetric matrices. The main goal is to relate the modulus of continuity of \(D^2u\) to the modulus of continuity of \(f\) when \(f\) is Dini continuous. In particular the following is established: if \(u\in C^2 (\overline {B_{r_0}})\) \((B_{r_0}\) is the ball of radius \(r_0)\) satisfies (*), where \(f\) is Dini continuous with modulus of continuity \( \omega (t)\), i.e., \(f\in C^{0, \omega} (B_{r_0})\), and \(\omega\) satisfies the strong but attainable condition \[ \lim_{u\to 0+} \sup_{0\leq t\leq 1/2} {\mu^\alpha \varphi(t) \over\varphi (t\mu)} =0 \quad \text{for} \quad \varphi(t): =t^\alpha +\omega(t) \] and \(\alpha\in (0,1)\) which depends only on dimension and ellipticity constants, then locally \(D^2u\) has modulus of continuity \(\leq C \psi (t)\), where for \(t>0\) sufficiently small, \(\psi(t): =t^\alpha +\int^t_0 \omega (r)/rdr\). This result allows one to consider the regularity of (*) when \(f\) is not Hölder continuous. The local solvability of the nonhomogeneous Dirichlet problem is then obtained through a regularization of \(f\) when the Dirichlet data is continuous.