Nondegeneracy of positive solutions to nonlinear Hardy-Sobolev equations (Q525400)

The author proves that the kernel of the linearized equation around a positive energy solution to a nonlinear Hardy-Sobolev equation is one-dimensional. More precisely, one considers a nonnegative solution \(W\in (C^2(\mathbb{R}^n\setminus \{0\})\setminus\{0\})\cap D_1^2(\mathbb{R}^n)\) to \[ -\Delta W -\frac{\gamma}{ |x|^{2}}W = \frac{W^{2^*(s)-1}}{|x|^{s}} \;\text{ in } \mathbb{R}^n\setminus\{0\}, \] where \(D_1^2(\mathbb{R}^n)\) is the completion of \(C_c^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}^n)\) for the norm \(u\mapsto ||\nabla u||_{2}\). It is assumed that \(n\geq 3\), \(s\in [0,2)\), \(0\leq \gamma <(n-2)^2/4\), \(s+\gamma>0\), and \(2^*(s)=2(n-s)/(n-2)\). Linearizing the problem above leads to consider \[ K=\left\{ \varphi \in D_1^2(\mathbb{R}^n) \;\Big|\;-\Delta\varphi -\frac{\gamma}{|x|^2}\varphi = (2^*(s)-1)\frac{W^{2^*(s)-2}}{|x|^s}\varphi \;\text{ in } D_1^2(\mathbb{R}^n)\right\}. \] The main result of this paper states that \(K\) is one-dimensional.