Positivity for fourth-order semilinear problems related to the Kirchhoff-love functional (Q526894)

Let \(\Omega \subset \mathbb R^2\) be a bounded convex domain with \(C^{1,1}\)-boundary. The author consideres the following generalization of the Kirchhoff-Love functional \[ J_\sigma (u)={1\over 2} \int_\Omega|\Delta u|^2 dx -(1-\sigma) \int_\Omega\det(\nabla^2u)dx - \int_\Omega F(x,u)dx, \quad u\in H^2(\Omega)\cap H^1 _0(\Omega), \] where \(\sigma \in \mathbb R\) is a parameter, \(F(x, u)= \int_0^ u f (x,t ) dt\) and \[ f(x,s) = g(x)| s|^{p-1}s \text{ with } p\in(0,1)\cup (1,+\infty),\quad g(x) \in L^1(\Omega)\text{ and }g(x)>0 \text{ a.e. in }\Omega. \] The existence and positivity of the critical points of \(J_\sigma\) with the least energy (i.e., the ground states) are investigated in this paper. By using variational methods combining some techniques such as the superharmonic method, some convergence arguments and the dual cones decomposition, the author proves that there exist \(\sigma^\ast \leq 1\) and \(\sigma_1>1\) such that the above functional \(J_\sigma\) has at least one positive ground state if \(\sigma \in (\sigma^\ast, \sigma_1)\), and \(J_\sigma\) has no positive critical points if \(\sigma \leq \sigma^\ast\). A convergence analysis of the ground states with respect to \(\sigma\) is provided. When \(\Omega\) is a ball, the existence of radial ground states and their decay behavior, and global bounds are discussed.