Existence of solutions of scalar field equations with fractional operator (Q523354)

This paper contains two main results: First the authors study existence of solutions to the problem \((1-\Delta)^\alpha u= f(u)\) in \(\mathbb{R}^N\), where \(0<\alpha<1\), \(N\geq 2\), and \(f\) satisfies Berestycki-Lions type conditions, and show in Theorem 1.1 the existence of infinitely many solutions in the fractional Sobolev space \(H^a(\mathbb{R}^N)\) satisfying the Pohozaev identity. Moreover, least energy energy solutions are characterized by the mountain pass theorem. The proof involves variational methods in this space and the use of an augmented functional helping to get bounded Palais-Smale sequences. A Brezis-Kato type result is proved also in order to obtain regularity. The second main result (Theorem 1.3) gives existence of a positive solution to \((1-\Delta)^\alpha u= f(x,u)\) in \(\mathbb{R}^N\), where \(f\) satisfies conditions (G1)-(G5) in the paper; in particular this involves subcritical nonlinearities satisfying some superquadraticity assumption. Variational arguments are again used, and a mountain pass geometry is available. Then the mountain pass value and the existence of an optimal path are used to give the proof. This extends previous work by several authors, in particular Felmer and Vergara, and Secchi.