A sign-changing solution for the Schrödinger-Poisson equation in \(\mathbb R^3\) (Q521281)

The authors study a model of interaction of a charged particle with an electromagnetic field which can be described by a system of a nonlinear Schrödinger equation coupled with a Poisson equation of the type \[ \begin{aligned} &- \Delta u +V(x)u + \phi u = u |u|^{p-2} ,\;\; x \in \Omega, \\ &-\Delta \phi=u^2, \end{aligned}\tag{1} \] where the domain \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^3\), \(V: \Omega \to \mathbb{R}\) and \(2 <p <6\). The main goal of the authors is to find a sign-changing solution for (1) in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) in the case when the potential \(V\) is not necessarily a radially symmetric function. The result is stated for a class of more general problems: \[ \begin{aligned} &- \Delta u +V(x)u + \phi u = f(u), \;\;x \in \Omega, \\ &-\Delta \phi=u^2, \end{aligned}\tag{2} \] under some natural assumptions concerning the function \(f\). The approach is based on variational methods in association with the deformation lemma and Miranda's theorem and on some arguments developed by the authors in previous works. The sign-changing solution is established as an existence result by minimization in a closed subset containing all sign-changing solutions of the equation.