Choquard equations under confining external potentials (Q523541)

The authors consider the nonlinear Choquard equation \[ -\Delta u+Vu=(I_\alpha * |u|^p)|u|^{p-2}u\;\;\text{in}\;\mathbb{R}^N \] where \(N \geq 1\), \(I_\alpha\) is the Riesz potential integral operator of order \(\alpha \in (0,N)\) and \(p > 1\). It is also assumed that the potential \(V \in C(\mathbb{R}^N;[0,\infty))\) satisfies \[ \liminf_{|x|\to +\infty}\frac{V(x)}{1+|x|^{\frac{N+\alpha}{p}-N}}=+\infty \] and \(\frac{1}{p}>\frac{N-2}{N+\alpha}\). By variational methods, they show the existence of a ground state and of an infinite sequence of solutions with diverging energy values. It is worth mentioning that when the external potential \(V\) is coercive enough, their result implies that ground states exist for a wider range of exponents than in the case where \(V\) is a positive constant. Moreover, under the additional restriction that \(p\geq 2\), they establish the existence of a least energy nodal solution. The proofs rest on combining Sobolev-type compact weighted embedding theorems together with the weighted estimates for fractional integrals of Stein and Weiss. Finally, by means of Pohozaev identities that they derive, it is also shown that the above range of exponents is optimal.