Biharmonic elliptic problems involving the 2nd Hessian operator (Q471108)

This paper deal with the 4th order PDE \[ \Delta u\, -\, S_2(D^2u)\;=\;f \] when \(u:\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^3\longrightarrow \mathbb{R}\) with \(\partial \Omega\) is smooth. Here \(S_2(D^2u)\) is the function of the eigenvalues of the Hessian given by \[ S_2(D^2u) \;:=\;\sum_{1<i<j<3}\lambda_i(D^2u) \, \lambda_j(D^2u). \] The authors consider different types of boundary conditions and with or without non-trivial right hand side \(f\) and primarily study the problem of existence of nontrivial solutions of the Dirichlet/Navier problem. In the case of Dirichlet conditions, the problem has a variational formulation and the study of the functional via mountain pass theory is basically the primary method of the authors. The weak formulation of the PDE in this case builds on the properties of the Hardy space and the Radon transform and relies on a result from Compensated Compactness. In the other cases, the authors use fixed point theory and bifurcation theory in order to study the PDE. The reviewer thinks that this is a very interesting paper which gathers very good results with deeply diverse methods. It is very well organised and well written, although at certain points the awkward use of the English language impairs the otherwise brilliant exposition.