Diffeomorphism-invariant properties for quasi-linear elliptic operators (Q692376)

The authors consider the nonlinear equation \[ -\mathrm{div}\, (j_{\xi }(x,u ,\nabla u))+ j_s (x,u ,\;\nabla u)=g(x,u) \quad \mathrm{in}\,\, \Omega \leqno{(1)} \] where \(\Omega \) is a smooth bounded domain in \({\mathbb R}^N\). The coerciveness means that there exists a positive constant \(\sigma >0\) such that \[ j(x,s,\xi ) \geq \sigma | \xi | ^2 \quad \mathrm{for}\,\, \mathrm{ a.e. }\,\, x\in \Omega \,\, \mathrm{ and} \,\, \mathrm{ all} \,\, (s,\xi ) \in {\mathbb R} \times {\mathbb R}^N. \leqno{(2)} \] The degenerate coerciveness means that for some function \(\sigma :{\mathbb R} \to {\mathbb R}^+\) with \(\sigma (s) \to 0\) as \(s \to \infty \), \[ j(x,s, \xi ) \geq \sigma (s) | \xi | ^2 \quad \mathrm{for} \,\, \mathrm{ a.e. }\, x\in \Omega \,\, \mathrm{ and}\,\, \mathrm{ all}\,\, (s,\xi ) \in {\mathbb R} \times {\mathbb R}^N. \leqno{(3)} \] The main goal of this paper is that of building a bridge between the theory for nondegenerate coerciveness problems and that for problems with degenerate coerciveness. Roughly speaking, the authors see a solution to a degenerate problem as related to a solution of a corresponding nondegenerate problem, preserving at the same time the main structural assumptions typically assumed for these classes of equations. They introduce a suitable class of diffeomorphisms \(\varphi \in C^2({\mathbb R})\) and consider the functions \(j^{\#}:\Omega \times {\mathbb R}\times {\mathbb R}^N\to {\mathbb R}, \quad g^{\#}:\Omega \times {\mathbb R} \to {\mathbb R}\) defined as , \(j^{\#}(x,s, \xi )= j(x ,\varphi (s), \varphi ' (s)\xi ), \quad g^{\#}(x,s)= g(x,\varphi (s))\varphi '(s)\) for a.e. \(x\in \Omega \) and all \((s,\xi )\in {\mathbb R}\times {\mathbb R}^N\). Then (3) holds, they can find \(\sigma ^{\#}>0\) such that \[ j^{\#}(x,s, \xi )\geq \sigma ^{\#}| \xi | ^2 \] for a.e. \(x\in \Omega \) and all \((s,\xi ) \in {\mathbb R}\times {\mathbb R}^N\). Thus it can be recovered that the nondegenerate coerciveness are deduced from the original degenerate frame work as in the following proposition. \textbf{Proposition}. Let \(\varphi \in C^2({\mathbb R})\) be a diffeomorphism as above. Assume that \(v\) is a generalized solution to \[ \begin{cases} -\mathrm{div}\, (j^{\#}_{\xi }(x,v ,\nabla v))+ j^{\#}_s (x,v , \nabla v)=g^{\#}(x,v) &\mathrm{in}\,\, \Omega ,\\ v=0 & \mathrm{on}\,\, \partial \Omega . \end{cases} \] Then \(u=\varphi (v) \) is a generalized solution to \[ \begin{cases} -\mathrm{div}\, (j_{\xi }(x,u ,\nabla u))+ j_s (x,u ,\nabla u)=g(x,u) &\mathrm{in}\,\, \Omega ,\\ u=0 & \mathrm{on}\,\, \partial \Omega . \end{cases} \]