Ground states for quasilinear equations of \(N\)-Laplacian type with critical exponential growth and lack of compactness (Q6976083)

The authors provide a detailed and precise description of the quasilinear differential equation defined by \N\[\N-\Delta_N u+V(x)|u|^{N-2}u=f(u) \quad \mbox{in } \mathbb{R}^N, \, N \geq 2.\N\]\NThe principal operator is the \(N\)-Laplace differential operator given by \(\Delta_N u=\mbox{div} (|\nabla u|^{N-2}\nabla u)\), the nonlinearity \(f \in C(\mathbb{R},\mathbb{R})\) shows critical exponential growth, and the potential \(V \in C(\mathbb{R}^N,\mathbb{R})\) is assumed to be periodic, radially symmetric or asymptotically constant. Combining various hypotheses on the data, the authors establish the existence of ground state solutions in Theorems 1.4 and 1.5 (in the periodic potential case) and in Theorem 1.7 (in the asymptotically constant potential case). Furthermore, the authors obtain the existence of mountain-pass type solutions for the radially symmetric potential case in Theorem 1.6. In developing their strategy, the authors overcame practical difficulties linked to the lack of compactness of the problem and to the critical exponential growth at infinity of the nonlinearity. Preliminary results are presented in a series of lemmas, in particular the authors point out two compactness lemmas for general nonlinear functionals in the space \(W^{1,N} (\mathbb{R}^N)\).