On Delaunay solutions of a biharmonic elliptic equation with critical exponent

TL;DR

This paper studies positive solutions of a biharmonic elliptic equation with critical exponent, proving sign-changing behavior of solutions and exploring periodicity properties of associated conformal factors.

Contribution

It demonstrates that solutions different from a known special solution change signs infinitely often and investigates the periodicity of a transformed solution.

Findings

Solutions differ from the special solution u_s change signs infinitely many times.

Existence of solutions with positive scalar curvature and periodic conformal factors.

Open problem regarding the periodicity of v(t) for all solutions.

Abstract

We are interested in the qualitative properties of positive entire solutions $u \in C^4 (\mathbb{R}^n \backslash \{0\})$ of the equation \begin{equation} \label{0.0} \Delta^2 u=u^{\frac{n+4}{n-4}} \;\;\mbox{in $\mathbb{R}^n \backslash \{0\}$ and 0 is a non-removable singularity of $u(x)$}. \end{equation} It is known from [Theorem 4.2] that any positive entire solution $u$ of \eqref{0.0} is radially symmetric with respect to $x=0$, i.e. $u(x)=u(|x|)$, and equation \eqref{0.0} also admits a special positive entire solution $u_s (x)=\Big(\frac{n^2 (n-4)^2}{16} \Big)^{\frac{n-4}{8}} |x|^{-\frac{n-4}{2}}$. We first show that $u-u_s$ changes signs infinitely many times in $(0, \infty)$ for any positive singular entire solution $u \not \equiv u_s$ in $\mathbb{R}^N \backslash \{0\}$ of \eqref{0.0}. Moreover, equation \eqref{0.0} admits a positive entire singular solution $u(x) \; (=u(|x|)$ such that the scalar curvature of the conformal metric with conformal factor $u^{\frac{4}{n-4}}$ is positive and $v(t):=e^{\frac{n-4}{2} t} u(e^t)$ is $2T$-periodic with suitably large $T$. It is still open that $v(t):=e^{\frac{n-4}{2} t} u(e^t)$ is periodic for any positive entire solution $u(x)$ of \eqref{0.0}.