The nodal set of solutions to some elliptic problems: singular nonlinearities

TL;DR

This paper studies the structure and regularity of solutions to a class of singular elliptic equations with nonlinearities involving positive and negative parts, extending previous results to new singular regimes.

Contribution

It extends regularity and classification results for solutions of elliptic equations with singular nonlinearities, including the structure of their nodal sets and vanishing order spectrum.

Findings

Finiteness of vanishing order at every point

Complete characterization of the order spectrum

Nodal set is a union of regular manifolds with controlled singular set

Abstract

This paper deals with solutions to the equation \begin{equation*} -\Delta u = \lambda_+ \left(u^+\right)^{q-1} - \lambda_- \left(u^-\right)^{q-1} \quad \text{in $B_1$} \end{equation*} where $\lambda_+,\lambda_- > 0$, $q \in (0,1)$, $B_1=B_1(0)$ is the unit ball in $\mathbb{R}^N$, $N \ge 2$, and $u^+:= \max\{u,0\}$, $u^-:= \max\{-u,0\}$ are the positive and the negative part of $u$, respectively. We extend to this class of \emph{singular} equations the results recently obtained in \cite{SoTe2018} for \emph{sublinear and discontinuous} equations, $1\leq q<2$, namely: (a) the finiteness of the vanishing order at every point and the complete characterization of the order spectrum; (b) a weak non-degeneracy property; (c) regularity of the nodal set of any solution: the nodal set is a locally finite collection of regular codimension one manifolds up to a residual singular set having Hausdorff dimension at most $N-2$ (locally finite when $N=2$). As an intermediate step, we establish the regularity of a class of \emph{not necessarily minimal} solutions. The proofs are based on a priori bounds, monotonicity formul\ae \ for a $2$-parameter family of Weiss-type functionals, blow-up arguments, and the classification of homogenous solutions.