Concentration phenomena for the nonlocal Schrödinger equation with Dirichlet datum (Q500393)

In this paper, the authors deal with the problem, for \(\varepsilon>0\), \[ \left\{\begin{aligned}\varepsilon^{2s} (-\Delta)^s U+U=U^p & {\text{ in \(\Omega\),}}\\ U=0 & {\text{ in \({\mathbb{R}}^n\setminus\Omega\),}}\end{aligned} \right\}\tag{1} \] where \(s\in(0,1)\), \(n\in \mathbb{N}\) with \(n>2s\), \(p\in \left(1,\frac{n+2s}{n-2s}\right)\), \(\Omega\subset{\mathbb{R}}^n\) is a bounded smooth domain, and as usual the operator~\((-\Delta)^s\) is the fractional Laplacian defined at \(x\in{\mathbb{R}}^n\) by \[ (-\Delta)^s U(x):= c(n,s)\,\int_{{\mathbb{R}}^n} \frac{2U(x)-U(x+y)-U(x-y)}{|y|^{n+2s}}\,dy, \] for a suitable positive normalizing constant~\(c(n,s)\). The goal of this paper is to construct solutions of problem (1) that concentrate at interior points of the domain for sufficiently small values of \(\varepsilon\). Thus, the authors establish the existence of a solution \(U_{\varepsilon}\) that at main order looks like \[ U_{\varepsilon}(x) \approx w\left( \frac{x- \xi_{\varepsilon}} {{\varepsilon}}\right ). \] Here, \(\xi_{\varepsilon}\) is a point lying at a uniformly positive distance from the boundary~\(\partial \Omega\), and \(w\) designates the unique radial positive \textit{least energy solution} of the problem \[ (-\Delta)^s w+w=w^p, \quad w\in H^s({\mathbb{R}}^n). \] Precisely, the main result in this paper is given by the following: If \(\varepsilon\) is sufficiently small, there exists a point \(\xi_\varepsilon\in\Omega\) and a solution \(U_\varepsilon\) of problem (1) such that \[ \left| U_\varepsilon(x)-w\left( \frac{x-\xi_\varepsilon}{\varepsilon}\right)\right|\leq C \varepsilon^{n+2s}, \] and \(\text{dist}(\xi_\varepsilon,\partial\Omega)\geq c\). Here, \(c\) and \(C\) are positive constants independent of \(\varepsilon\) and \(\Omega\). Moreover, setting \[ \Omega_\varepsilon:=\frac\Omega\varepsilon=\left\{ \frac{x}{\varepsilon},\;x\in\Omega\right\}, \] the point \(\bar\xi_\varepsilon:=\frac{\xi_\varepsilon}{\varepsilon}\) is such that \[ {\mathcal{H}}_\varepsilon(\bar\xi_\varepsilon) = \min_{\bar\xi\in \Omega_\varepsilon}{\mathcal{H}}_\varepsilon(\bar\xi) + O(\varepsilon^{n+4s}) \] for the functional \({\mathcal{H}}_\varepsilon(\bar\xi)\) defined by \[ {\mathcal{H}}_\varepsilon({\bar\xi}):=\int_{\Omega_\varepsilon}\int_{\Omega_\varepsilon} H_\varepsilon(x,y) \,w_{\bar\xi}^p(x)\,w_{\bar\xi}^p(y)\,dx\,dy, \] where the function \(H_\varepsilon\) is the regular part of the related Green function in \(\Omega_\varepsilon\). Notice that, unlike the classical case when \(s=1\), the leading order of the associated reduced energy functional in a variational reduction procedure is of polynomial instead of exponential order on the distance from the boundary, due to the nonlocal framework involved here. For this, a fine analysis is needed in order to overcome the lack of localization, in particular by establishing the asymptotics for the Green function of \( \epsilon^{2s} (-\Delta)^s+1\) in the expanding domain \(\Omega/\varepsilon\) with zero exterior datum.