Existence and non existence results for the singular Nirenberg problem

TL;DR

This paper investigates the existence of conformal metrics with prescribed Gaussian curvature and conical singularities on surfaces, especially the sphere, providing conditions for existence and examples of non-realizable functions.

Contribution

It introduces new sufficient conditions for prescribing Gaussian curvature with sign-changing functions on surfaces with conical singularities, using a min-max approach and compactness arguments.

Findings

Established conditions on the regularity and topology of the prescribed function for existence.

Identified functions that cannot be realized as Gaussian curvature, demonstrating the sharpness of the results.

Provided a class of non-realizable functions on the sphere with a single conical singularity.

Abstract

In this paper we study the problem, posed by Troyanov, of prescribing the Gaussian curvature under a conformal change of the metric on surfaces with conical singularities. Such geometrical problem can be reduced to the solvability of a nonlinear PDE with exponential type non-linearity admitting a variational structure. In particular, we are concerned with the case where the prescribed function $K$ changes sign. When the surface is the standard sphere, namely for the singular Nirenberg problem, by a min-max approach and a new compactness argument we give sufficient conditions on $K$, concerning mainly the regularity of its nodal line and the topology of its positive nodal region, to be the Gaussian curvature of a conformal metric with assigned conical singularities. Besides, we find a class of functions on $\mathbb{S}^2$ which do not verify our conditions and which can not be realized as the Gaussian curvature of any conformal metric with one conical singularity. This shows that our result is somehow sharp.