Existence and nonexistence of maximizers for variational problems associated with Trudinger--Moser type inequalities in \({\mathbb{R}^N}\) (Q652249)

Let \(N\geq2\) and let \(\alpha_N=N| S^{N-1}|^{1/(N-1)}\) where \(| S^{N-1}|\) is the surface area of the \((N-1)\)-dimensional unit sphere in \(\mathbb R^N\). For \(\alpha\in(0,\alpha_N)\) and \(t>0\) define the function \(\Phi_{N,\alpha}(t)=\exp(\alpha t)-\sum_{j=0}^{N-2}(\alpha^j/j!)t^j\). The author considers the following kind of Trudinger-Moser inequality in \(\mathbb R^N\): \[ \int_{\mathbb R^N}\Phi_{N,\alpha}(| u|^{N/(N-1)})\leq D_{N,\alpha} \text{ for } u\in W^{1,N}(\mathbb R^N) \text{ with } \| u\|_{W^{1,N}}=1. \] He investigates the attainability of the best constant \(D_{N,\alpha}\) proving that the best constant is attained for \(\alpha\in(0,\alpha_N)\) if \(N\geq3\) and for \(\alpha\in(2B_2^{-1},4\pi]\) if \(N=2\), where \(B_2=\sup_{\phi\in H^1\setminus\{0\}}\|\phi\|_4^4\|\nabla\phi\|_2^{-2}\|\phi\|_2^{-2}\). On the other hand, the best constant is not attained if \(N=2\) and \(\alpha\ll1\).