The effect of geometry of the domain boundary in an elliptic Neumann problem. (Q5954496)

The authors study the following Neumann problem: \[ \begin{cases}-\Delta u+\mu u=u^{2^\ast-1-\varepsilon} & \text{in } \Omega \cr u>0\;\text{ in}\;\Omega,\quad {\partial u\over \partial\nu}=0 & \text{on } \Omega \end{cases} \] where \(\Omega\) is a bounded, smooth domain in \({\mathbb R}^N\) \((N\geq 3),\) \(2^\ast ={2N\over N-2},\) \(\mu>0,\) \(\varepsilon\in [0,{4\over N-2}),\) \(\nu\) is the unit outward normal vector to \(\partial\Omega.\) It is studied the effect of the topology of the sublevel sets \(\{x\in \partial\Omega: H(x)\leq t\}\) (for local maximum sets) or superlevel sets \(\{x\in \partial\Omega: H(x)\geq t\}\) (for local minimum sets), \(t\in {\mathbb R},\) on the existence and multiplicity of multipeak solutions in the following cases: (i) (almost critical): \(\varepsilon>0,\) \(\varepsilon\to 0\) and \(\mu>0\) is fixed. (ii) (critical): \(\varepsilon=0\) and \(\mu\to +\infty.\) It is shown existence of multipeak solutions in case (i) for any \(\mu>0,\) provided that \(\varepsilon\in (0,\varepsilon_\mu)\) and \(\varepsilon_\mu>0\) is sufficiently small. The peaks of such solutions concentrate at critical points of \(H\) on \(\partial\Omega\) where \(H<0.\) In the critical case (ii) the concentration takes place at critical points of \(H\) where \(H>0.\)