On a class of PDE involving \(p\)-biharmonic operator (Q642849)

The author investigates a question on the existence of nontrivial solutions of a boundary value problem for nonlinear partial differential equations of the form \[ \begin{aligned} & \Delta(|\Delta u|^{p-2}\Delta u)=\lambda \rho |u|^{q-2}u\quad \text{in}\;\Omega,\\ &u=\Delta u=0,\quad \text{on}\;\partial\Omega,\end{aligned} \] where \(\Omega\in \mathbb R^N\) is a smooth bounded domain in \(\mathbb R^N\), \(\lambda> 0\) is a parameter which plays the role of an eigenvalue, \(p\) and \(q\) are real numbers such that \(p>1\) and \(1<q<p^{**}\), if \(1<p<\frac N2\), and \(q<+\infty\), if \(p\geq\frac N2\), where \(p^{**}\) is the critical Sobolev exponent defined by \(p^{**}=\frac{Np}{N-2p}\), if \(1<p<\frac N2\) and \(p^{**}=+\infty\), if \(p>\frac N2\), and \(\rho\) is an indefinite weight in \(L^r(\Omega)\), with \(r\) being defined via \(p\), \(q\). In fact, the author shows that the critical points of the associated energy functional \[ \mathcal A(u)=\frac 1p\int_{\Omega}|\Delta u|^pdx-\frac{\lambda}q\int_{\Omega}\rho(x)|u|^qdx \] are defined in \(W^{1,p}_0(\Omega)\cap W^{2,p}(\Omega)\).