Existence and multiplicity results for quasilinear elliptic differential systems (Q4947023)

The authors consider the homogeneous Dirichlet problem to the following variational system of quasilinear elliptic equations in a (not necessarily bounded) domain \(\Omega\subset\mathbb R^n\), \(n\geqslant 3\): \[ -\sum^n_{i,j=1} D_j\left(a_{ij}(x,u) D_iu_k\right) + \frac 12 \sum^n_{i,j,l=1} \frac{\partial a_{ij}}{\partial u_k} (x,u) D_iu_l D_ju_l=\frac{\partial F}{\partial u_k}(x,u), \] \(k=1,2,\dots,n\). In virtue of the dependence of the functions \(a_{ij}\) on \(u\) the corresponding functional \(J(u)\) is not locally Lipschitz continuous. Therefore the nonsmooth critical point theory is used. The existence of weak solutions in both cases, when the function \(F(x,u)\) is sublinear and superlinear with respect to \(u\), is proved. In the superlinear case the functional \(J(u)\) has the mountain pass geometry. They extend a technique of T. Bartsch to obtain multiplicity results when the system is invariant under the action of a compact Lie group.