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# Class of self-limiting growth models in the presence of nonlinear diffusion

## I Introduction

Reaction-diffusion systems are ubiquitous in almost all branches of physics , chemistry  and biology  dealing with population growth, fluid dynamics, pulse propagation in nerves, chemical reactions, optical and other processes. The basic equation describes the dynamics of a field variable $`n(x,t)`$, a function of space and time in terms of a source term (also known as reaction term) and a diffusion term. An important early endeavor in this direction is the study of self-limiting growth models of which the most well-known is the Fisher equation  which takes into account of a linear growth and a nonlinear decay. The model and many of its variants have found wide applications both from theoretical and experimental point of view . A notable feature of these models is that the source or the reaction terms do not involve any explicit time dependence. On the other hand there are situations  where the source terms contain explicit functions of time which put a constraint on the growth process in the long time limit. For example, the Gompertz growth  is a model used for study of growth of animals and tumors, where the growth rate is proportional to the current value, but the proportionality factor decreases exponentially in time so that

$$\frac{dn}{dt}=rn\mathrm{exp}(\alpha t),$$
(2)
where $`r`$ and $`\alpha `$ are positive experimentally determined constants. Similarly another type of model proposed to analyze the growth of bacterial population in culture  is described by

$$\frac{dn}{dt}=knt\mathrm{exp}(\beta t^2).$$
(3)
Again $`k`$ and $`\beta `$ are positive constants required to fit the experimental data. An important feature of these models is that unlike the logistic growth process the asymptotic value of the density function $`n`$ depends on its initial population.

Keeping in view of these experimental observations it is therefore worthwhile to generalize the specific cases in terms of an explicit function of time $`\varphi (t)`$ such that we write

$$\frac{dn}{dt}=rn\varphi (t)$$
(4)
where $`r`$ is a constant for the growth process and $`\varphi (t)`$ may of the type (i) $`\varphi (t)`$ = 1 for exponential growth (ii) $`\varphi (t)=\mathrm{exp}(\alpha t)`$ for Gompertz growth (iii) $`\varphi (t)=t\mathrm{exp}(\beta t^2)`$ for bacterial growth, etc.

The object of the present paper is to study a reaction-diffusion system with a reaction term describing a class of self-limiting growth processes (4). Since in many living organisms concentration dependent diffusivity  has been found to be essential to the modeling of reaction-diffusion systems we investigate the interplay of this nonlinear diffusion and self-limiting growth process in the dynamics. We show that the model and its variant with a finite memory transport  admit of exact solutions. The dependence of the rate of spread of the wave front on various parameters is explored.

## II The reaction-diffusion system

We consider a reaction-diffusion system with a source term describing self-limiting growth and with a nonlinear diffusion term in the following form:

$$\frac{n(x,t)}{t}=rn\varphi (t)+\frac{}{x}Dn\frac{n}{x}$$
(5)
where D is the diffusion coefficient. Our primary aim in this section is to provide an exact solution of Eq.(5). To this end we first make use of the following transformation

$$n(x,t)=\stackrel{~}{u}(x,t)\mathrm{exp}\left(r_0^t\varphi (t^{})𝑑t^{}\right)$$
(6)
in Eq.(5) to obtain

$$\frac{\stackrel{~}{u}(x,t)}{t}=D\mathrm{exp}\left(r_0^t\varphi (t^{})𝑑t^{}\right)\frac{}{x}\left\{\stackrel{~}{u}\frac{\stackrel{~}{u}}{x}\right\}.$$
(7)
We now introduce the scaled time variable $`\tau `$ as

$$\tau =D_0^tf(t^{})𝑑t^{}G(t)(say)$$
(9)
where

$$f(t)=\mathrm{exp}[r_0^t\varphi (t^{})𝑑t^{}].$$
(10)
This reduces Eq.(7) to the following form

$$\frac{u(x,\tau )}{\tau }=\frac{}{x}\left\{u(x,\tau )\frac{u(x,\tau )}{x}\right\}$$
(11)
with $`\stackrel{~}{u}(x,t)\stackrel{~}{u}(x,G^1(\tau ))=u(x,\tau )`$ where time $`t`$ has been expressed as an inverse function $`G^1(\tau )`$ according to Eq.(9-10).

Eq.(11) is the well-known Boltzmann nonlinear diffusion equation . Now subject to the initial condition of a unit point source at the origin,

$$n(x,0)=\delta (x)=\stackrel{~}{u}(x,0)=u(x,0)$$
(12)
we solve Eq.(11) under the following boundary conditions

$$\underset{x\pm \mathrm{}}{lim}u(x,\tau )=0\tau >0$$
(13)
and

$$_{\mathrm{}}^+\mathrm{}u(x,\tau )𝑑x=1\tau >0.$$
(14)
Next we seek the similarity solution of the nonlinear diffusion equation (11). We make use of the well-known similarity transformation

$$u=\tau ^{1/3}v(z)\mathrm{and}z=x\tau ^{1/3}$$
(15)
in Eq.(11) to obtain

$$3\frac{d}{dz}\left(v\frac{dv}{dz}\right)+v+z\frac{dv}{dz}=0$$
(16)
On integration Eq.(16) yields

$$3\left(v\frac{dv}{dz}\right)+zv=0$$
(17)
Since we are interested in the symmetric solutions with $`v^{}(0)=0`$ we have put the integration constant zero in going from Eq.(16) to (17). On further integration Eq.(17) results in the solution

$$\begin{array}{ccc}v(z)\hfill & =\hfill & (A^2z^2)/6|z|<A\hfill \\ & =\hfill & 0|z|>A\hfill \end{array}$$
(19)
where $`A`$ is a constant which can be determined from the condition (14) to obtain

$$A=\left(9/2\right)^{1/3}$$
(20)
Therefore the solution of Eq.(11) in $`x`$ and $`\tau `$ is given by

$`u(x,\tau )`$ $`=`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{6\tau }}\left[A^2\tau ^{2/3}x^2\right]|x|<A\tau ^{1/3}`$ (21)
$`=`$ $`0|x|>A\tau ^{1/3}`$ (22)
It is interesting to note that by virtue of the relations (9-10) $`\tau `$ is dependent on $`r`$ and $`\varphi (t)`$ which control the growth and self-limiting factors, respectively of the source term. This implies that the shock-wave like behaviour with propagating wave-front at $`x=x_f=A\tau ^{1/3}`$ as evident from the similarity solutions (22) critically depends on the reaction terms. Specifically, the wave front propagates in the medium with speed

$$\frac{dx_f}{dt}=\frac{1}{3}\left(\frac{9D}{2}\right)^{1/3}f(t)\left[_0^tf(t^{})𝑑t^{}\right]^{2/3}$$
(23)
where $`f(t)`$ is given by (9) and in turn depends on the functional form of $`\varphi (t)`$.

We now consider two specific cases to illustrate the spatial propagation patterns.

(i) $`\varphi (t)`$ = 1

For a constant value of $`\varphi `$ the model suggests an exponential growth. The relation (9) in this case can then be utilized to obtain $`f(t)=\mathrm{exp}(rt)`$ so that $`\tau =(D/r)[\mathrm{exp}(rt)1]`$. Putting this expression for $`\tau `$ in the solution (22) we have after using Eq.(6)

$$n(x,t)=\frac{\left[A^2\left\{(D/r)\left(\mathrm{exp}(rt)1\right)\right\}^{2/3}\right]x^2}{(6D/r)[\mathrm{exp}(rt)1]\mathrm{exp}(rt)}$$
(24)
This solution clearly has a sharp wave-front at $`x_f=A\tau ^{1/3}`$ which propagates at a speed

$$\frac{dx_f}{dt}=\frac{1}{3}A\left(Dr^2\right)^{1/3}\mathrm{exp}(rt)\left(\mathrm{exp}(rt)1\right)^{2/3}$$
(25)
To illustrate the spatial propagation of the population $`n(x,t)`$ in time we plot in Fig-1 the spatial shock-wave like patterns for $`r=1.0`$ and $`D=1.0`$. It is apparent that the sharply peaked distribution at $`t=0`$ starts spreading relatively slowly with peak at $`x=0`$ diminishing with time upto a period $`t=0.1`$ . Beyond this time the spatial growth of population becomes comparatively large and it diverges due to the combined effect of exponential growth and nonlinear diffusion. For a much lower growth rate $`(r=0.001)`$, however, the population spreads monotonically due to the nonlinear diffusion which overwhelms the effect of growth process. This is evident in Fig-1(b).

(ii) $`\varphi (t)=t\mathrm{exp}(\beta t^2)`$

With the above expression for $`\varphi (t)`$ for bacterial self-limiting growth we obtain from (9-10)

$$f(t)=\mathrm{exp}[(r/2\beta )(\mathrm{exp}(\beta t)1)]$$
(26)
and

$$\tau =D\mathrm{exp}(r/2\beta )_0^t\mathrm{exp}[(r/2\beta )\mathrm{exp}(\beta t^{})]𝑑t^{}$$
(27)
By defining $`z=(r/2\beta )\mathrm{exp}(\beta t)`$ the above expression can be reduced to the following form

$$\tau =D\frac{\mathrm{exp}(r/2\beta )}{\beta }_{(r/2\beta )}^{(r/2\beta )\mathrm{exp}(\beta t)}\frac{\mathrm{exp}(z)}{z}𝑑z$$
(28)
The integral in (28) can be put into a standard form with the help of $`Ei`$-function  so that $`\tau `$ can be expressed as

$$\tau =D\frac{\mathrm{exp}(r/2\beta )}{\beta }[Ei\left(r/2\beta \right)Ei\left((r/2\beta )\mathrm{exp}(\beta t)\right)]$$
(29)
The corresponding density $`n(x,t)`$ and the speed of the wave front $`dx_f/dt`$ at $`x_f`$ are given by

$$n(x,t)=\frac{A^2\left(D\mathrm{exp}(r/2\beta )/\beta \right)^{2/3}\left[Ei\left(r/2\beta \right)Ei\left((r/2\beta )\mathrm{exp}(\beta t)\right)\right]^{2/3}x^2}{(6D/\beta )\left[Ei(r/2\beta )Ei((r/2\beta )\mathrm{exp}(\beta t))\right]\mathrm{exp}[(r/2\beta )\mathrm{exp}(\beta t)]}$$
(30)
and

$$\frac{dx_f}{dt}=A\left(D\frac{\mathrm{exp}(r/2\beta )}{\beta }\right)^{1/3}\frac{d}{dt}\left[Ei(r/2\beta )Ei((r/2\beta )\mathrm{exp}(\beta t))\right]^{1/3}$$
(31)
respectively.

In Fig-2(a,b) we show the shock-wave like spread of population by plotting $`n(x,t)`$ vs $`x`$ for several values of time for $`D=1`$ and $`r=1`$ . Since $`\beta `$ puts a limit to the growth at large time the peak of $`n(x,t)`$ at $`x=0`$ as shown in Fig-2(a) ($`\beta =0.1`$) does not increase too much as compared to the earlier case considered in Fig-1(a). It has been observed that for a unique value of $`\beta 1.0`$ there is a monotonic decrease in the peak population $`n(x,t)`$ at $`x=0`$. For smaller values of $`\beta `$ (Fig-2(b)) the spread is similar to that in Fig-1(a). In Fig-2(c) we exhibit the spatial front propagation for several values of growth rate $`r`$ at a time $`t=1.0`$ keeping $`D=1`$ and $`\beta =0.01`$. It is apparent that with increase of $`r`$ the reaction dominates over diffusion so that the peak population at $`x=0`$ increases compared to spreading.

## III Effect of finite memory transport

We now generalize the proposed reaction-diffusion model to include the effect of finite memory transport. It has been observed that an animal’s movement at a particular instant of time often depends on its motion in the immediate past. This results in a delay in population flux, or a memory in the diffusion coefficient. A number of attempts have been made in the recent literature  to analyze the delayed population growth in several models and related context in heat conduction and transport processes. To consider a finite memory in the present model we modify the nonlinear diffusion term in Eq.(5) to the following form:

$`{\displaystyle \frac{n(x,t)}{t}}=rn(x,t)\varphi (t)+`$ (32)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{}{x}}\left[D\gamma {\displaystyle _0^t}\mathrm{exp}[\gamma (t\tau )]n(x,\tau ){\displaystyle \frac{n(x,\tau )}{x}}𝑑\tau \right]`$ (33)
where $`\gamma `$ refers to the inverse of relaxation time. The population flux takes into account of the relaxation effect due to the delay of the particles in adopting a definite direction of propagation. Differentiating both sides of the above equation with respect to $`t`$ and using it again we obtain

$$\frac{^2n}{t^2}=(r\varphi \gamma )\frac{n}{t}+(r\dot{\varphi }+r\varphi \gamma )n+\frac{}{x}\left[D\gamma n\frac{n}{x}\right]$$
(34)
In the limit of vanishing relaxation time i.e, $`1/\gamma `$0 Eq.(34) reduces to Eq.(5). When memory effects are taken into account, the dispersal of the organisms are not mutually independent. Hence the correlation between the successive movement of the diffusing particles results in a delay in the transport. Thus Eq.(34) is a typical form of a delayed transport equation.

We now consider a specific case $`\varphi (t)=1`$. Substitution of the traveling wave form $`N(z)`$ $`(=n(x,t))`$ with $`z=x+ct`$ satisfies

$$c^2\frac{^2N}{z^2}=c(r\gamma )\frac{N}{z}+r\gamma N+D\gamma \frac{}{z}\left(N\frac{N}{z}\right)$$
(35)
where $`c`$ is the speed of the traveling wave to be determined.

We now consider the trial solution of Eq.(35) of the form $`N(z)=N_0\mathrm{exp}(sz^b)`$ subject to the initial condition that at $`z=0`$, $`N=N_0`$, where $`s`$ and $`b`$ are positive constants to be determined. Substitution of this solution in Eq.(35) yields the following relation

$`[c^2s^2b^2z^{2(b1)}+c^2sb(b1)z^{(b2)}csb(r\gamma )z^{(b1)}`$ (36)
$`r\gamma ]\mathrm{exp}(sz^b)D\gamma N_0sb[2sbz^{2(b1)}+(b1)z^{(b2)}]`$ (37)
$`\times \mathrm{exp}(2sz^b)L(z)=0`$ (38)
For $`L(z)=0`$, for all z, the coefficients of $`\mathrm{exp}(sz^b)`$ and $`\mathrm{exp}(2sz^b)`$ within the square brackets must vanish identically. For this the only acceptable solution for $`b`$ is $`b=1`$. We obtain

$$2s^2D\gamma N_0=0$$
(40)
and

$$c^2s^2cs(r\gamma )r\gamma =0$$
(41)
From the above two equations the solution for $`s`$ is given by

$$s=\frac{c[(1/\gamma )(1/r)]+[c^2\left((1/\gamma )(1/r)\right)^2+4/r\left((c^2/\gamma )+2DN_0\right)]^{1/2}}{2\left[\left(c^2/\gamma r\right)+\left(2DN_0/r\right)\right]}$$
(42)
In the limit of instantaneous relaxation, i.e, $`1/\gamma `$0 Eq.(42) yields

$$s=\frac{c\left[1+\left(1+(DN_0r/c^2)\right)^{1/2}\right]}{4DN_0}$$
(43)
Furthermore the above expression in the limit of weak diffusion $`D`$0 we obtain from Eq.(43) after a Taylor expansion

$$s=\frac{r}{c}$$
(44)
To determine the speed of the propagation of the wave front we now rearrange the solution for $`s`$ in (42) to obtain

$$c=\frac{(r\gamma )+\left[(r\gamma )^2+4(r\gamma 2s^2D\gamma N_0)\right]^{1/2}}{2s}$$
(45)
For real values of $`c`$, the quantity inside the square root must be positive, which determines the minimum value of $`c`$ for $`s=r/c`$ \[ Eq.(44) \] as

$$c_{min}=\frac{2r^2D\gamma N_0}{(r+\gamma )^2}$$
(46)
Eq.(35) therefore admits of an exact traveling wave like solution

$$N(z)=N_0\mathrm{exp}\left[\frac{c(r\gamma )+\left(c^2(r\gamma )^2+4r\gamma (c^2+2D\gamma N_0)\right)^{1/2}}{2(c^2+2D\gamma N_0)}\right]z$$
(47)
It is interesting to observe that the speed of the traveling wave front not only depends on nonlinear diffusion and growth rate but also on the initial concentration and memory. A comparison of the solutions in this section and in the previous one shows that (47) does not reduces to Eq.(24) in the limit of vanishing relaxation time ($`1/\gamma 0`$) although Eq.(34) goes over to Eq.(5) under this condition. This is because of the fact that the nature of the partial differential equation changes due to the inclusion of relaxation terms and also the boundary conditions for the shock wave like ‘diffusing solutions’ (24) are different for the travelling wave front solution (47). The nature of the two solutions are thus generically different. We point out in passing that the dependence on initial concentration on speed as shown in (46) is rather an unusual feature in reaction-diffusion system.

## IV Conclusions

In this paper we have analyzed a class of reaction-diffusion systems in which the kinetic term describes the self-limiting growth processes of the Gompertz type and is an explicit function of time. We have shown that the model can be solved exactly to analyze the spatial front propagation problem. To make the model more realistic we have included the effect of finite relaxation to concentration-dependent diffusive processes. In view of the fact that the source terms have their direct relevance on experimental measurement on animal and tumor growth or bacterial culture we think that the solutions discussed in this paper will be pertinent in the context of reaction-diffusion systems, in general.

###### Acknowledgements.

The authors are indebted to C.S.I.R. (Council of Scientific and Industrial Research), Government of India, for financial support.


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# Electromagnetic penguin operators and direct CP violation in 𝐾→𝜋ℓ⁺ℓ⁻

## 1 Introduction

Rare kaon decays provide an ideal place both to test the Standard Model (SM) and to unravel new physics beyond it . The origin of CP violation is still an open question in modern particle physics. Dimension-five operators including the electromagnetic and chromomagnetic penguin operators (EMO and CMO) play important roles in these studies since the CP-violating effects from these operators are suppressed in the SM but could be enhanced in its extensions . In fact present experiments, HyperCP  and KLOE , and planned ones, NA48b , are going to substantially improve the present limits on the Wilson coefficients of these operators by studying CP-violating asymmetries in $`K^\pm 3\pi `$, $`K^\pm \pi \pi \gamma `$ and in $`K^\pm \pi ^\pm \mathrm{}\overline{\mathrm{}}`$ ($`\mathrm{}=e,\mu `$). As we shall see, although it is hard to test the SM now it is possible to probe interesting new physics scenarios. To this purpose it is necessary to know hadronic matrix elements accurately: we address this issue in a particular bosonization scheme.

The weak effective Hamiltonian, contributed by EMO and CMO, can be written as

$$_{\mathrm{eff}}=C_\gamma ^+(\mu )Q_\gamma ^+(\mu )+C_\gamma ^{}(\mu )Q_\gamma ^{}(\mu )+C_g^+(\mu )Q_g^+(\mu )+C_g^{}(\mu )Q_g^{}(\mu )+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,$$
(1)
where $`C_{\gamma ,g}^\pm `$ are the Wilson coefficients and

$`Q_\gamma ^\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{eQ_d}{16\pi ^2}}(\overline{s}_L\sigma _{\mu \nu }d_R\pm \overline{s}_R\sigma _{\mu \nu }d_L)F^{\mu \nu },`$ (2)
$`Q_g^\pm ={\displaystyle \frac{g}{16\pi ^2}}(\overline{s}_L\sigma _{\mu \nu }t_ad_R\pm \overline{s}_R\sigma _{\mu \nu }t_ad_L)G_a^{\mu \nu }.`$ (3)
Here $`\sigma _{\mu \nu }=i/2[\gamma _\mu ,\gamma _\nu ]`$. The SM structure, $`SU(2)_L\times U(1)`$, imposes a chiral suppression for the following operators :

$`_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\mathrm{SM}}={\displaystyle \frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}}V_{td}V_{ts}^{}[C_{11}{\displaystyle \frac{g}{8\pi ^2}}(m_d\overline{s}_L\sigma _{\mu \nu }t_ad_R+m_s\overline{s}_R\sigma _{\mu \nu }t_ad_L)G_a^{\mu \nu }`$
$`+C_{12}{\displaystyle \frac{e}{8\pi ^2}}(m_d\overline{s}_L\sigma _{\mu \nu }d_R+m_s\overline{s}_R\sigma _{\mu \nu }d_L)F^{\mu \nu }]+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,`$ (4)
and

$`C_{11}(m_W)={\displaystyle \frac{3x^2}{2(1x)^4}}\mathrm{ln}x{\displaystyle \frac{x^35x^22x}{4(1x)^3}},`$ (5)
$`C_{12}(m_W)={\displaystyle \frac{x^2(23x)}{2(1x)^4}}\mathrm{ln}x{\displaystyle \frac{8x^3+5x^27x}{12(1x)^3}},`$ (6)
where $`x=m_t^2/m_W^2`$ and $`t_a`$ are the $`SU(3)`$-matrices. However, as we shall see, new flavour structures in the supersymmetry-breaking terms allow us to avoid the chiral suppression for the operators in eq. (4).

Among rare kaon decays, the flavour-changing neutral current (FCNC) transitions $`K\pi \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$, induced at the one-loop level in the SM, are well suited to explore its quantum structure and extensions . The decay $`K_L\pi ^0e^+e^{}`$ receives contributions from three sources : direct CP violation, indirect CP violation due to $`K^0`$$`\overline{K}^0`$ mixing, and CP conservation from the two-photon rescattering in $`K_L\pi ^0\gamma \gamma `$. Therefore, once long-distance effects have been carefully disentangled , new physics, induced by the operators in eq. (2), can be probed in this channel. Analogously the charge asymmetry in $`K^\pm \pi ^\pm \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ could be enhanced by a large Wilson coefficient of the operator in eq. (2) . Recently it has been shown that also T-odd correlations in charged Kl4-decays depend upon the effective Hamiltonian in (1) .

We thus consider here the matrix element $`\pi ^0|Q_\gamma ^+|K^0`$ to determine the observables discussed above. In order to evaluate the bosonization of the EMO we exploit the chiral quark model, which provides an effective link between QCD and low energy chiral perturbation theory. This is particularly interesting since the first lattice calculation of the matrix element $`\pi ^0|Q_\gamma ^+|K^0`$ has been done in Ref.  and thus a comparison of the two methods can be performed. This might be useful in general to understand the extent of validity of the two approaches in the evaluation of other matrix elements such as the penguin operator.

## 2 The chiral quark model

The chiral quark model ($`\chi `$QM )  has been extensively used to study low energy hadronic physics involving strong and weak interactions . Note that the interactions among mesons proceeds in this model only by means of quark loops: starting from the short-distance effective Hamiltonian in terms of quark operators (such as four-quark operators, EMO, and CMO), the $`\chi `$QM allows us to deduce the low energy effective lagrangian in terms of the input parameters of the model.

In the $`\chi `$QM , a term that represents the coupling between the light (constituent) quarks and the Goldstone mesons

$$M_Q(\overline{q}_RUq_L+\overline{q}_LU^+q_R)$$
(7)
has been introduced into the QCD lagrangian. The Goldstone meson fields, $`\varphi (x)`$, are collected in a unitary $`3\times 3`$ matrix $`U=\mathrm{exp}(i/f_\pi \lambda \varphi (x))`$ (where the $`\lambda ^a`$’s are the $`3\times 3`$ Gell-Mann matrices and $`f_\pi 93`$ MeV) with det$`U`$=1, which transforms as

$$UV_RUV_L^+$$
(8)
under chiral SU(3)$`{}_{L}{}^{}\times `$SU(3)R transformations ($`V_L`$, $`V_R`$), and

$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}}\lambda \varphi (x)=\left(\begin{array}{ccc}\frac{\pi ^0}{\sqrt{2}}+\frac{\eta _8}{\sqrt{6}}& \pi ^+& K^+\\ & & \\ \pi ^{}& \frac{\pi ^0}{\sqrt{2}}+\frac{\eta _8}{\sqrt{6}}& K^0\\ & & \\ K^{}& \overline{K}^0& \frac{2\eta _8}{\sqrt{6}}\end{array}\right).`$ (14)
In the presence of the term (7), it is convenient to use new quark fields, $`Q_L`$ and $`Q_R`$, called “rotated basis”, defined as follows

$`Q_L=\xi q_L,\overline{Q}_L=\overline{q}_L\xi ^+,`$
$`Q_R=\xi ^+q_R,\overline{Q}_R=\overline{q}_R\xi ,`$ (15)
with $`\xi `$ chosen such that

$$U=\xi ^2.$$
(16)
The chiral SU(3)$`{}_{L}{}^{}\times `$SU(3)R transformation

$$\xi (x)V_R\xi (x)h^+(x)=h(x)\xi (x)V_L^+$$
(17)
defines the compensating SU(3)V transformation $`h(\varphi (x))`$, which is the wanted ingredient for a non-linear representation of the chiral group. Then $`Q_{L,R}`$’s transform as

$$Q_Lh(x)Q_L,Q_Rh(x)Q_R,$$
(18)
while the term (7)

$$M_Q(\overline{q}_RUq_L+\overline{q}_LU^+q_R)=M_Q(\overline{Q}_RQ_L+\overline{Q}_LQ_R)$$
(19)
is invariant. Therefore, the quark fields $`Q_{L,R}`$ can be interpreted as “constituent chiral quarks” and $`M_Q`$ as a “constituent quark mass”.

Now in order to evaluate the bosonization of the EMO, we firstly write down the EMO using the “rotated basis” in the Euclidean space

$`_{\mathrm{eff}}^{\mathrm{SM}}`$ $`=`$ $`\overline{Q}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1\gamma _5}{2}}\xi ^+\lambda \xi ^+m_s+{\displaystyle \frac{1+\gamma _5}{2}}\xi \lambda \xi m_d\right)\sigma _{\mu \nu }QC_{\mathrm{EMO}}F^{\mu \nu }`$ (20)
$`+\overline{Q}\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+\gamma _5}{2}}\xi \lambda ^+\xi m_s+{\displaystyle \frac{1\gamma _5}{2}}\xi ^+\lambda ^+\xi ^+m_d\right)\sigma _{\mu \nu }QC_{\mathrm{EMO}}^{}F^{\mu \nu },`$
where $`\lambda _{ij}=\delta _{i3}\delta _{j2}`$, and

$$C_{\mathrm{EMO}}=\frac{G_F}{\sqrt{2}}\frac{e}{8\pi ^2}\lambda _tC_{12},\lambda _t=V_{td}V_{ts}^{}.$$
(21)
Here we use the form of EMO in the SM \[eq. (4)\]. It is very easy to extend it to the general form in eq. (1).

Then the effective action induced by the EMO can be written as follows

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_E(𝒜,M)=\frac{1}{2}d^4x\mathrm{Tr}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\tau }{\tau }\frac{d^dp_E}{(2\pi )^d}\mathrm{exp}\left[\tau (p_E^2+M_Q^2)\right]\mathrm{exp}(\tau 𝒟^{}),$$
(22)
where Tr is the trace over colour, flavour and Lorentz space, $`𝒟^{}`$ is defined in (A.25), and the integral over $`\tau `$ is introduced by using the proper time method . The detailed derivation for eq. (22) has been shown in the Appendix, and dimensional regularization has been used for the involved divergences. Expanding $`\mathrm{exp}(\tau 𝒟^{})`$ in powers of $`\tau `$, and integrating over the momenta, one can get the effective action in powers of $`\tau `$, and the corresponding coefficients are the so-called Seeley–DeWitt coefficients. Then the effective lagrangian can be obtained by integrating out $`\tau `$. The standard procedure can be found in Refs. . If we set $`F_1=F_2=J_{\mu \nu }=0`$ in $`𝒟^{}`$ \[see (A.25) in Appendix\], which implies that the EMO is switched off, eq. (22) will give the same effective lagrangian as in Ref. . Here we are concerned about the effective lagrangian generated from the EMO, which is relevant to $`K\pi \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ transitions. Thus at the leading order we get

$$_{\mathrm{EMO}}^{\mathrm{SM}}=\frac{iN_CM_Q}{8\pi ^2}C_{\mathrm{EMO}}m_d\lambda UL_\mu L_\nu +m_s\lambda L_\mu L_\nu U^+F^{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.,$$
(23)
where $`L_\mu =iU^+D_\mu U`$, $`N_C`$ is the number of colours, and $`A`$ denotes the trace of $`A`$ in the flavour space. Likewise, the corresponding effective lagrangian from the general form of the EMO in eq. (1) is

$$_{\mathrm{EMO}}^\pm =\frac{iN_CM_Q}{8\pi ^2}\frac{eQ_d}{16\pi ^2}C_\gamma ^\pm \lambda UL_\mu L_\nu \pm \lambda L_\mu L_\nu U^+F^{\mu \nu }+\mathrm{h}.\mathrm{c}.$$
(24)
where $`_{\mathrm{EMO}}^+`$ ($`_{\mathrm{EMO}}^{}`$) generates parity-even (odd) transitions.

The matrix elements of the EMO between a $`K^0`$ and a $`\pi ^0`$ can be written as

$$\pi ^0|Q_\gamma ^+|K^0=i\frac{\sqrt{2}eQ_d}{16\pi ^2m_K}p_\pi ^\mu p_K^\nu F_{\mu \nu }B_T,$$
(25)
$$\pi ^0|Q_\gamma ^{}|K^0=0.$$
(26)
Then from eqs. (1) and (24), we can obtain

$$B_T=\frac{N_CM_Qm_K}{4\pi ^2f_\pi ^2}.$$
(27)
Setting $`M_Q=`$0.3 GeV, we have $`B_T=1`$.31, which is consistent with $`B_T=1.18\pm 0.09`$ found in the lattice  and $`B_T1`$ in Ref. , and the range $`|B_T|=0.52`$ adopted in Ref. . Our theoretical error on $`B_T`$ in (27) has two sources: i) from the quark mass $`M_Q`$, which we believe it is very small, $`10\%`$, and ii) from higher order corrections in the $`\chi `$QM, generated by large-$`N_c`$ gluonic interactions. We have evaluated this contribution using the standard techniques in Refs. , finding the correction to (27)

$$\frac{\pi ^2}{9N_c}\frac{\frac{\alpha _s}{\pi }GG}{M_Q^4}.$$
(28)
The size of the gluon condensate cannot be simply related to the one which appears in the QCD sum rule . However terms like the one in (28), but with larger coefficients, correct also the leading order predictions for the $`L_i`$’s and $`f_\pi `$ . Model consistency and the phenomenologically successful predictions of the leading order evaluation, lead us to the reasonable expectation that the gluon correction in (28) cannot exceed $`30\%`$ and so consequently we can very conservatively estimate the error in this way on $`B_T`$, i.e. $`B_T=1.31\pm 0.4`$.

We stress that the agreement with the lattice is found for natural values of the chiral quark model. So we can be quite confident in this result.

## 3 $`K\pi \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$

The decay width of $`K_L\pi ^0e^+e^{}`$ induced by the EMO is given by

$$\mathrm{Br}(K_L\pi ^0e^+e^{})_{\mathrm{EMO}}=8.9\times 10^3\mathrm{GeV}^2B_T^2|\mathrm{Im}C_\gamma ^+|^2.$$
(29)
To obtain an interesting bound on $`\mathrm{Im}C_\gamma ^+`$ we improve our error on $`B_T`$ by considering also the lattice results . Thus from the experimental upper bound

$$\mathrm{Br}(K_L\pi ^0e^+e^{})<5.1\times 10^{10},$$
(30)
we get

$$|\mathrm{Im}C_\gamma ^+|<1.8\times 10^7\mathrm{GeV}^1$$
(31)
at $`80\%`$ C.L.

It is known that $`K^\pm \pi ^\pm \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ is dominated by long-distance, charge-symmetric, one-photon exchange . This piece can be written as

$$A(K^+\pi ^+\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})=\frac{e^2}{m_K^2(4\pi )^2}W_+(z)(p_K+p_\pi )^\mu \overline{u}(p_{})\gamma _\mu v(p_+),$$
(32)
where $`z=(p_Kp_\pi )^2/m_K^2`$, and the general form factor $`W_+(z)`$ has been shown in Ref. . The piece induced by the EMO will interfere with the imaginary part of $`W_+(z)`$, which arises from the two-pion intermediate state . The asymmetry is then written as

$$\left(\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)_{\mathrm{}}^{\mathrm{EMO}}=\frac{|\mathrm{\Gamma }(K^+\pi ^+\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})\mathrm{\Gamma }(K^{}\pi ^{}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})|_{\mathrm{EMO}}}{\mathrm{\Gamma }(K^+\pi ^+\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})+\mathrm{\Gamma }(K^{}\pi ^{}\mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{})}.$$
(33)
Interestingly, with a kinematical cut $`z4m_\pi ^2/m_K^2`$, the charge asymmetry in eq. (33) could be substantially enhanced . Thus from eqs. (32) and (33), and using the upper bound of $`|\mathrm{Im}C_\gamma ^+|`$ given in eq. (31), we can find the charge asymmetry for $`\mathrm{}=e,\mu `$ as

$$\left(\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)_e^{\mathrm{EMO}}<1.3\times 10^4,\left(\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)_\mu ^{\mathrm{EMO}}<4.5\times 10^4$$
(34)
without the kinematical cut for $`z`$, and

$$\left(\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)_e^{\mathrm{EMO}}<1.2\times 10^3,\left(\frac{\delta \mathrm{\Gamma }}{2\mathrm{\Gamma }}\right)_\mu ^{\mathrm{EMO}}<1.3\times 10^3$$
(35)
with the cut $`z4m_\pi ^2/m_K^2`$. Note that, differently from Ref. , here we only use the experimental bound of Br($`K_L\pi ^0e^+e^{}`$) to estimate the charge asymmetry in both electron and muon mode. So we are neglecting possible lepton-family violations.

## 4 Limits on new flavour structures

From eq. (23), one can get $`\mathrm{Im}C_\gamma ^+`$ in the SM

$$|\mathrm{Im}C_\gamma ^+|^{\mathrm{SM}}=\frac{3G_F}{\sqrt{2}}(m_s+m_d)|\mathrm{Im}\lambda _tC_{12}|.$$
(36)
Due to the smallness of $`\mathrm{Im}\lambda _t10^4`$, this contribution from the SM is strongly suppressed, and far smaller than the upper bound (31). Therefore in the following we turn our attention to physics beyond the SM.

Among the possible new physics scenarios, low energy supersymmetry (SUSY) , represents one of the most interesting and consistent extensions of the SM. In generic supersymmetric models, the large number of new particles carrying flavour quantum numbers would naturally lead to large effects in CP violation and FCNC amplitudes . Particularly, one can generate the enhancement of $`C_{\gamma ,g}^\pm `$ at one-loop, via intermediate squarks and gluinos, which is due both to the strong coupling constant and to the removal of chirality suppression present in the SM. Full expressions for the Wilson coefficients generated by gluino exchange at the SUSY scale can be found in Ref. . We are interested here only in the contributions proportional to $`m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}`$, which are given by

$`C_{\gamma ,\mathrm{SUSY}}^\pm (m_{\stackrel{~}{g}})={\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _s(m_{\stackrel{~}{g}})}{m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}}}\left[(\delta _{\mathrm{LR}}^\mathrm{D})_{21}\pm (\delta _{\mathrm{LR}}^\mathrm{D})_{12}^{}\right]F_{\mathrm{SUSY}}(x_{gq}),`$ (37)
$`C_{g,\mathrm{SUSY}}^\pm (m_{\stackrel{~}{g}})={\displaystyle \frac{\pi \alpha _s(m_{\stackrel{~}{g}})}{m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}}}\left[(\delta _{\mathrm{LR}}^\mathrm{D})_{21}\pm (\delta _{\mathrm{LR}}^\mathrm{D})_{12}^{}\right]G_{\mathrm{SUSY}}(x_{gq}),`$ (38)
where $`(\delta _{\mathrm{LR}}^\mathrm{D})_{ij}=(M_\mathrm{D}^2)_{i_\mathrm{L}j_\mathrm{R}}/m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}^2`$ denotes the off-diagonal entries of the (down-type) squark mass matrix in the super-CKM basis, $`x_{gq}=m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}^2/m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}^2`$ with $`m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}`$ being the average gluino mass and $`m_{\stackrel{~}{q}}`$ the average squark mass. The explicit expressions of $`F_{\mathrm{SUSY}}(x)`$ and $`G_{\mathrm{SUSY}}(x)`$ are given in Ref. , but noting that they do not depend strongly on $`x`$, it is sufficient, for our purposes, to approximate $`F_{\mathrm{SUSY}}(x)`$ $`F_{\mathrm{SUSY}}(1)=2/9`$ and $`G_{\mathrm{SUSY}}(x)`$ $`G_{\mathrm{SUSY}}(1)=5/18`$. In any case it will be easy to extend the numerology once $`x_{gq}`$ is better known. Also the determination of the Wilson coefficients in eqs. (37) and (38) can be improved by the renormalization group analysis . Then by taking $`m_{\stackrel{~}{g}}=500`$ GeV, $`m_t=174`$ GeV, $`m_b=5`$ GeV, and $`\mu =m_c=1.25`$ GeV, we will have

$$\left|\mathrm{Im}C_\gamma ^+\right|^{\mathrm{SUSY}}=2.4\times 10^4\mathrm{GeV}^1\left|\mathrm{Im}[(\delta _{\mathrm{LR}}^\mathrm{D})_{21}+(\delta _{\mathrm{LR}}^\mathrm{D})_{12}^{}]\right|.$$
(39)
From eq. (31), we obtain

$$\left|\mathrm{Im}[(\delta _{\mathrm{LR}}^\mathrm{D})_{21}+(\delta _{\mathrm{LR}}^\mathrm{D})_{12}^{}]\right|<7.7\times 10^4,$$
(40)
comparable with the one given by the lattice calculation .

## 5 Conclusions

To conclude, supersymmetric extensions of the SM may enhance the Wilson coefficients of the electromagnetic penguin operators. This leads to interesting phenomenology to be studied: the direct CP violation in $`K_L\pi ^0e^+e^{}`$ and the charge asymmetry in $`K^\pm \pi ^\pm \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$. To this purpose we evaluate the relevant matrix element in the $`\chi `$QM. Interestingly we find a very good agreement with lattice results for the natural parameters of the model . The present experimental upper bound of $`\mathrm{Br}(K_L\pi ^0e^+e^{})`$ allows to obtain an upper bound of $`|\mathrm{Im}C_\gamma ^+|`$, and thus to predict the upper bound of the charge asymmetry in $`K^\pm \pi ^\pm \mathrm{}^+\mathrm{}^{}`$ induced by EMO. The analysis shows that the predictions for the relevant matrix elements are solid and thus high precision measurements of CP-observables might probe interesting extensions of the SM.

###### Acknowledgments.

We thank Gino Isidori for useful discussions. D.N.G. is supported in part by the NSF of China under Grant No. 19905008.

## Appendix A Appendix

Here we present the derivation for eq. (22) in the $`\chi `$QM. Including the constituent quark mass term in eq. (7), the strong lagrangian in the rotated basis \[eq.(15)\] and in the Euclidean space is (after we switch off contributions from the EMO)

$$_{\mathrm{Str}}^E=\frac{1}{4}G_{\mu \nu }^aG_{\mu \nu }^a+\overline{Q}D_EQ,$$
(A.1)
where $`G_{\mu \nu }^a`$ is the gluon fields strength tensor, and $`D_E`$ the Euclidean Dirac operator

$$D_E=\gamma _\mu _\mu +M=\gamma _\mu (_\mu +𝒜_\mu )+M,$$
(A.2)
with

$$𝒜_\mu =iG_\mu +\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu \frac{i}{2}\gamma _5\xi _\mu ,M=\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{\Sigma }\gamma _5\mathrm{\Delta })M_Q.$$
(A.3)
Note that, in the present paper, we use the same notations as in Ref.  and so for the Euclidean quantities, $`\gamma _\mu ^+=\gamma _\mu `$, $`\{\gamma _\mu ,\gamma _\nu \}=2\delta _{\mu \nu }`$, and $`\sigma _{\mu \nu }=i/2[\gamma _\mu ,\gamma _\nu ]`$. The external vector and axial-vector fields now appear in $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu `$ and $`\xi _\mu `$

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}[\xi ^+(_\mu ir_\mu )\xi +\xi (_\mu il_\mu )\xi ^+],`$ (A.4)
$`\xi _\mu =i[\xi ^+(_\mu ir_\mu )\xi \xi (_\mu il_\mu )\xi ^+],`$ (A.5)
and

$$\mathrm{\Sigma }=\xi ^+\xi ^++\xi \xi ,\mathrm{\Delta }=\xi ^+\xi ^+\xi \xi .$$
(A.6)
Here $``$ is the current quark mass matrix, and

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ^+=\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ,\xi _\mu ^+=\xi _\mu ,\mathrm{\Sigma }^+=\mathrm{\Sigma },\mathrm{\Delta }^+=\mathrm{\Delta },^+=.$$
(A.7)
The $`\mathrm{\Sigma }`$\- and $`\mathrm{\Delta }`$-terms break chiral symmetry explicitly.

The Euclidean effective action $`W_E(U,r,l,,M_Q)`$ is obtained as follows

$$\mathrm{exp}W_E(U,r,l,,M_Q)=\frac{1}{Z}𝒟G_\mu \mathrm{exp}\left(\frac{1}{4}G_{\mu \nu }^aG_{\mu \nu }^a\right)\mathrm{exp}\mathrm{\Gamma }_E(𝒜,M),$$
(A.8)
where $`Z`$ is the normalization factor, and

$$\mathrm{exp}\mathrm{\Gamma }_E(𝒜,M)=𝒟\overline{Q}𝒟Q\mathrm{exp}d^4x\overline{Q}D_EQ=\mathrm{det}D_E.$$
(A.9)
Since we are concerned with the non-anomalous part of the effective action, we have

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_E(𝒜,M)=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{det}D_E^+D_E,$$
(A.10)
with

$$D_E^+=\gamma _\mu \left(_\mu +iG_\mu +\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu +\frac{i}{2}\gamma _5\xi _\mu \right)\frac{1}{2}(\mathrm{\Sigma }+\gamma _5\mathrm{\Delta })M_Q.$$
(A.11)
Using the technique of the heat kernel expansion , one can derive the effective strong lagrangian starting from (A.10), which has been discussed extensively in the literature.

Now we switch on the EMO. Note that this operator has been expressed using the rotated basis in eq. (20); it is thus easy to know that (A.10) should become

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_E(𝒜,M)=\frac{1}{2}\mathrm{ln}\mathrm{det}D_{E}^{+}{}_{}{}^{}D_{E}^{}{}_{}{}^{},$$
(A.12)
with

$$D_{E}^{}{}_{}{}^{}=D_E+J,D_{E}^{+}{}_{}{}^{}=D_E^++J^+,$$
(A.13)
$$J=\sigma _{\mu \nu }J_{\mu \nu },J^+=\sigma _{\mu \nu }J_{\mu \nu }^+,$$
(A.14)
and

$`J_{\mu \nu }`$ $`=`$ $`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1\gamma _5}{2}}\xi ^+\lambda \xi ^+m_s+{\displaystyle \frac{1+\gamma _5}{2}}\xi \lambda \xi m_d\right)C_{\mathrm{EMO}}F_{\mu \nu }`$ (A.15)
$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{1+\gamma _5}{2}}\xi \lambda ^+\xi m_s+{\displaystyle \frac{1\gamma _5}{2}}\xi ^+\lambda ^+\xi ^+m_d\right)C_{\mathrm{EMO}}^{}F_{\mu \nu },`$
$`J_{\mu \nu }^+`$ $`=`$ $`J_{\mu \nu }(\gamma _5\gamma _5).`$ (A.16)
Thus, one can get

$$D_{E}^{+}{}_{}{}^{}D_{E}^{}{}_{}{}^{}M_Q^2=_\mu _\mu +E+F_1+F_2,$$
(A.17)
with

$$E=iM_Q\gamma _\mu \gamma _5\xi _\mu \frac{i}{2}\sigma _{\mu \nu }R_{\mu \nu },$$
(A.18)
$$F_1=\gamma _\mu \sigma _{\alpha \beta }d_\mu J_{\alpha \beta }+\frac{i}{2}\gamma _\mu \sigma _{\alpha \beta }\{\gamma _5\xi _\mu ,J_{\alpha \beta }\}M_Q\sigma _{\mu \nu }(J_{\mu \nu }+J_{\mu \nu }^+),$$
(A.19)
$$F_2=4i\gamma _\mu J_{\mu \nu }_\nu ,$$
(A.20)
and

$$R_{\mu \nu }=iG_{\mu \nu }i\left(\frac{1+\gamma _5}{2}\xi ^+F_{R\mu \nu }\xi +\frac{1\gamma _5}{2}\xi F_{L\mu \nu }\xi ^+\right).$$
(A.21)
Here we set $`\mathrm{\Sigma }=\mathrm{\Delta }=0`$, $`d_\mu `$ is the covariant derivative with respect to the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu `$-connection, i.e. $`d_\mu A=_\mu A+[\mathrm{\Gamma }_\mu ,A]`$, and the relation

$$[\gamma _\mu ,\sigma _{\alpha \beta }]=2i(\delta _{\mu \alpha }\gamma _\beta \delta _{\mu \beta }\gamma _\alpha )$$
(A.22)
has been used. We only include the linear terms of $`J_{\mu \nu }`$ in $`F_1`$ and $`F_2`$ because we are concerned about the $`O(G_F)`$ $`\mathrm{\Delta }S=1`$ transitions.

Starting from (A.12), and in terms of the proper time method , we have

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_E(𝒜,M)=\frac{1}{2}d^4x\mathrm{Tr}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\tau }{\tau }x|\mathrm{exp}(\tau D_{E}^{+}{}_{}{}^{}D_{E}^{}{}_{}{}^{})|x,$$
(A.23)
where the trace is taken in colour, flavour, and Lorentz space. By inserting a complete set of plane waves and using (A.17), we obtain

$$\mathrm{\Gamma }_E(𝒜,M)=\frac{1}{2}d^4x\mathrm{Tr}_0^{\mathrm{}}\frac{d\tau }{\tau }\frac{d^dp_E}{(2\pi )^d}\mathrm{exp}\left[\tau (p_E^2+M_Q^2)\right]\mathrm{exp}(\tau 𝒟^{}),$$
(A.24)
where

$$𝒟^{}=E+F_12ip_E+F_2+4\gamma _\mu p_{E}^{}{}_{\nu }{}^{}J_{\mu \nu }.$$
(A.25)


text:
# Perturbation results of critical elliptic equations of Caffarelli-Kohn-Nirenberg type

## 1. Introduction

We will consider the following elliptic equation in $`^N`$ in dimension $`N3`$

$`\mathrm{div}(|x|^{2a}u){\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{|x|^{2(1+a)}}}u=K(x){\displaystyle \frac{u^{p1}}{|x|^{bp}}},x^N\{0\}`$ (1.1)
where

$`\begin{array}{cc}& \mathrm{}<a<{\displaystyle \frac{N2}{2}},\mathrm{}<\lambda <\left({\displaystyle \frac{N2a2}{2}}\right)^2\hfill \\ & p=p(a,b)={\displaystyle \frac{2N}{N2(1+ab)}}\text{and}ab<a+1.\hfill \end{array}`$ (1.2)
For $`\lambda =0`$ equation (1.1) is related to a family of inequalities given by Caffarelli et al. ,

$`u_{p,b}^2:=\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{bp}|u|^p𝑑x\right)^{2/p}𝒞_{a,b}{\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{2a}|u|^2𝑑xuC_0^{\mathrm{}}(^N).`$ (1.3)
For sharp constants and extremal functions we refer to Catrina and Wang .
The natural functional space to study (1.1) is $`D_a^{1,2}(^N)`$ defined as the completion of $`C_0^{\mathrm{}}(^N)`$ with respect to the norm

$$u_a:=u_{}=\left[_^N|x|^{2a}|u|^2𝑑x\right]^{1/2}.$$

We will mainly deal with the perturbative case $`K(x)=1+\epsilon k(x)`$, namely with the problem

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{div}(|x|^{2a}u)\frac{\lambda }{|x|^{2(1+a)}}u=\left(1+\epsilon k(x)\right)\frac{u^{p1}}{|x|^{bp}}\hfill & \\ uD_a^{1,2}(^N),u>0\text{ in }^N\backslash \{0\}.\hfill & \end{array}$$
($`𝒫_{a,b,\lambda }`$)
Concerning the perturbation $`k`$ we assume

$`kL^{\mathrm{}}(^N)C(^N).`$ (1.4)
Our approach is based on an abstract perturbative variational method discussed by Ambrosetti and Badiale , which splits our procedure in three main steps. First we consider the unperturbed problem, i.e. $`\epsilon =0`$, and find a one dimensional manifold of radial solutions. If this manifold is non-degenerate (see Theorem 1.1 below) a one dimensional reduction of the perturbed variational problem in $`D_a^{1,2}(^N)`$ is possible. Finally we have to find a critical point of a functional defined on the real line.
Solutions of $`(𝒫_{a,b,\lambda })`$ are critical points in $`𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ of

$$f_\epsilon (u):=\frac{1}{2}_^N|x|^{2a}|u|^2𝑑x\frac{\lambda }{2}_^N\frac{u^2}{|x|^{2(1+a)}}𝑑x\frac{1}{p}_^N\left(1+\epsilon k(x)\right)\frac{u_+^p}{|x|^{bp}}𝑑x,$$

where $`u_+:=\mathrm{max}\{u,0\}`$. For $`\epsilon =0`$ we show that $`f_0`$ has a one dimensional manifold of critical points

$$Z_{a,b,\lambda }:=\left\{z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda }:=\mu ^{\frac{N22a}{2}}z_1^{a,b,\lambda }\left(\frac{x}{\mu }\right)\right|\mu >0\},$$

where $`z_1^{a,b,\lambda }`$ is explicitly given in (2) below. These radial solutions were computed for $`\lambda =0`$ in , the case $`a=b=0`$ and $`\mathrm{}<\lambda <(N2)^2/4`$ was done by Terracini . The exact knowledge of the critical manifold enables us to clarify the question of non-degeneracy.

###### Theorem 1.1.

Suppose $`a,b,\lambda ,p`$ satisfy (1.2). Then the critical manifold $`Z_{a,b,\lambda }`$ is non-degenerate, i.e.

$`T_zZ_{a,b,\lambda }=\mathrm{ker}D^2f_0(z)zZ_{a,b,\lambda },`$ (1.5)
if and only if

$`bh_j(a,\lambda ):={\displaystyle \frac{N}{2}}\left[1+{\displaystyle \frac{4j(N+j1)}{(N22a)^24\lambda }}\right]^{1/2}{\displaystyle \frac{N22a}{2}}j\{0\}.`$ (1.6)
Figure 1 ($`\lambda =0`$ and $`h_j(,0)`$ for $`j=1\mathrm{}5`$)

The above theorem is rather unexpected as it is explicit. It improves the non-degeneracy results and answers an open question in . Moreover, it fairly highlights the symmetry breaking phenomenon of the unperturbed problem observed in , i.e. the existence of non-radial minimizers of

$`𝒞_{a,b}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}:=\underset{uD_a^{1,2}(^N)\backslash \{0\}}{inf}{\displaystyle \frac{|x|^{2a}|u|^2}{\left(|x|^{bp}|u|^p\right)^{\frac{2}{p}}}}=\underset{uD_a^{1,2}(^N)\backslash \{0\}}{inf}{\displaystyle \frac{u_a^2}{u_{p,b}^2}}.`$ (1.7)
In fact we improve \[7, Thm 1.3\], where it is shown that there are an open subset $`H^2`$ containing $`\{(a,a)|a<0\}`$, a real number $`a_00`$ and a function $`h:]\mathrm{},a_0]`$ satisfying $`h(a_0)=a_0`$ and $`a<h(a)<a+1`$ for all $`a<a_0`$, such that for every $`(a,b)H\{(a,b)^2|a<a_0,a<b<h(a)\}`$ the minimizer in (1.7) is non-radial (see figure 2 below). We show that one may choose $`a_0=0`$ and $`h=h_1(,0)`$ and obtain, as a consequence of Theorem 1.1 for $`\lambda =0`$,

###### Corollary 1.2.

Suppose $`a,b,p`$ satisfy (1.2). If $`b<h_1(a,0)`$, then $`𝒞_{a,b}`$ in (1.7) is attained by a non-radially symmetric function.

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| region of non-radial minimizers in  | region of non-radial minimizers given by $`h_1(,0)`$ |

Figure 2

Concerning step two, the one-dimensional reduction, we follow closely the abstract scheme in  and construct a manifold $`Z_{a,b,\lambda }^\epsilon =\left\{z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda }+w(\epsilon ,\mu )\right|\mu >0\}`$, such that any critical point of $`f_\epsilon `$ restricted to $`Z_{a,b,\lambda }^\epsilon `$ is a solution to $`(𝒫_{a,b,\lambda })`$. We emphasize that in contrast to the local approach in  we construct a manifold which is globally diffeomorphic to the unperturbed one such that we may estimate the difference $`w(\epsilon ,\mu )`$ when $`\mu \mathrm{}`$ or $`\mu 0`$ (see also ). More precisely we show under assumption (1.8) below that $`w(\epsilon ,\mu )`$ vanishes as $`\mu \mathrm{}`$ or $`\mu 0`$ .

We will prove the following existence results.

###### Theorem 1.3.

Suppose (1.2), (1.4), and (1.6) hold. Then problem $`(𝒫_{a,b,\lambda })`$ has a solution for all $`|\epsilon |`$ sufficiently small if

$`k(\mathrm{}):=\underset{|x|\mathrm{}}{lim}k(x)`$ $`\text{exists and }k(\mathrm{})=k(0)=0.`$ (1.8)
###### Theorem 1.4.

Assume (1.2),(1.4), (1.6) and

$`kC^2(^N),|k|L^{\mathrm{}}(^N)\text{ and }|D^2k|L^{\mathrm{}}(^N).`$ (1.9)
Then $`(𝒫_{a,b,\lambda })`$ is solvable for all small $`|\epsilon |`$ under each of the following conditions

$`\underset{|x|\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}k(x)k(0)`$ $`\text{and }\mathrm{\Delta }k(0)>0,`$ (1.10)
$`\underset{|x|\mathrm{}}{lim\; inf}k(x)k(0)`$ $`\text{and }\mathrm{\Delta }k(0)<0.`$ (1.11)
###### Remark 1.5.

Our analysis of the unperturbed problem allows to consider more general perturbation, for instance it is possible to treat equations like

$$\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{div}(|x|^{2a}u)\frac{\lambda +\epsilon _1V(x)}{|x|^{2(1+a)}}u=\left(1+\epsilon _2k(x)\right)\frac{u^{p1}}{|x|^{bp}}\hfill & \\ uD_a^{1,2}(^N),u>0\text{ in }^N\backslash \{0\}.\hfill & \end{array}$$

Existence results in this direction are given by Abdellaoui and Peral , where the case $`a=0`$ and $`b=0`$ is studied. We generalize some existence results obtained there to arbitrary $`a,b`$ and $`\lambda `$ satisfying (1.2) and (1.6).

Problem (1.1), the non-perturbative version of $`(𝒫_{a,b,\lambda })`$, was studied by Smets  in the case $`a=b=0`$ and $`0<\lambda <(N2)^2/4`$. A variational minimax method combined with a careful analysis and construction of Palais-Smale sequences shows that in dimension $`N=4`$ equation (1.1) has a positive solution $`uD_a^{1,2}(^N)`$ if $`KC^2`$ is positive and satisfies an analogous condition to (1.8), namely $`K(0)=lim_{|x|\mathrm{}}K(x)`$. In our perturbative approach we need not to impose any condition on the space dimension $`N`$. Theorem 1.3 gives the perspective to relax the restriction $`N=4`$ on the space dimension also in the nonperturbative case.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Prof. A. Ambrosetti for his interest in their work and for helpful suggestions.

## Preliminaries

Catrina and Wang  proved that for $`b=a+1`$

$$𝒞_{a,a+1}^1=𝒮_{a,a+1}=\underset{D_a^{1,2}(^N)\{0\}}{inf}\frac{_^N|x|^{2a}|u|^2}{\left(_^N|x|^{2(1+a)}|u|^2\right)}=\left(\frac{N22a}{2}\right)^2.$$

Hence we obtain for $`\mathrm{}<\lambda <\left(\frac{N22a}{2}\right)^2`$ a norm, equivalent to $`_{}`$, given by

$`u=\left[{\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{2a}|u|^2𝑑x\lambda {\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{u^2}{|x|^{2(1+a)}}}𝑑x\right]^{1/2}.`$ (1.12)
We denote by $`𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ the Hilbert space equipped with the scalar product induced by $``$

$$(u,v)=_^N|x|^{2a}uvdx\lambda _^N\frac{uv}{|x|^{2(1+a)}}𝑑x.$$

We will mainly work in this space. Moreover, we define by $`𝒞`$ the cylinder $`\times S^{N1}`$. It is is shown in \[7, Prop. 2.2\] that the transformation

$`u(x)=|x|^{\frac{N22a}{2}}v(\mathrm{ln}|x|,{\displaystyle \frac{x}{|x|}})`$ (1.13)
induces a Hilbert space isomorphism from $`𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ to $`H_\lambda ^{1,2}(𝒞)`$, where the scalar product in $`H_\lambda ^{1,2}(𝒞)`$ is defined by

$$(v_1,v_2)_{H_\lambda ^{1,2}(𝒞)}:=_𝒞v_1v_2+\left(\left(\frac{N22a}{2}\right)^2\lambda \right)v_1v_2.$$

Using the canonical identification of the Hilbert space $`𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ with its dual induced by the scalar-product and denoted by $`𝒦`$, i.e.

$$𝒦:\left(𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)\right)^{}𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N),(𝒦(\phi ),u)=\phi (u)(\phi ,u)\left(𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)\right)^{}\times 𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N),$$

we shall consider $`f_\epsilon ^{}(u)`$ as an element of $`𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ and $`f_\epsilon ^{\prime \prime }(u)`$ as one of $`(𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N))`$.
If we test $`f_\epsilon ^{}(u)`$ with $`u_{}=\mathrm{max}\{u,0\}`$ we get

$`(f_\epsilon ^{}(u),u_{})={\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{2a}uu_{}\lambda {\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{uu_{}}{|x|^{2(1+a)}}}{\displaystyle _^N}\left(1+\epsilon k(x)\right){\displaystyle \frac{u_+^{p1}u_{}}{|x|^{bp}}}=u_{}^2`$
and see that any critical point of $`f_\epsilon `$ is nonnegative. The maximum principle applied in $`^N\backslash \{0\}`$ shows that any nontrivial critical point is positive in that region. We cannot expect more since the radial solutions to the unperturbed problem $`(\epsilon =0)`$ vanish at the origin if $`\lambda <0`$ (see (2) below). Moreover from standard elliptic regularity theory, solutions to $`(𝒫_{a,b,\lambda })`$ are $`C^{1,\alpha }(^N\{0\})`$, $`\alpha >0`$.
The unperturbed functional $`f_0`$ is given by

$$f_0(u):=\frac{1}{2}_^N|x|^{2a}|u|^2𝑑x\frac{\lambda }{2}_^N\frac{u^2}{|x|^{2(1+a)}}𝑑x\frac{1}{p}_^N\frac{u_+^p}{|x|^{bp}}𝑑x,u𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)$$

and we may write $`f_\epsilon (u)=f_0(u)\epsilon G(u)`$, where

$`G(u):={\displaystyle \frac{1}{p}}{\displaystyle _^N}k(x){\displaystyle \frac{u_+^p}{|x|^{bp}}}.`$ (1.14)
## 2. The unperturbed problem

Critical points of the unperturbed functional $`f_0`$ solve the equation

$`\{\begin{array}{cc}\mathrm{div}(|x|^{2a}u){\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{|x|^{2(1+a)}}}u={\displaystyle \frac{1}{|x|^{bp}}}u^{p1}\hfill & \\ u𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N),u>0\text{ in }^N\backslash \{0\}.\hfill & \end{array}`$ (2.1)
To find all radially symmetric solutions $`u`$ of (2.1), i.e. $`u(x)=u(r)`$, where $`r=|x|`$, we follow  and note that if $`u`$ is radial, then equation (2.1) can be written as

$`{\displaystyle \frac{u^{\prime \prime }}{r^{2a}}}{\displaystyle \frac{N2a1}{r^{2a+1}}}u^{}{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{r^{2(a+1)}}}u={\displaystyle \frac{1}{r^{bp}}}u^{p1}.`$ (2.2)
Making now the change of variable

$`u(r)=r^{\frac{N22a}{2}}\phi (\mathrm{ln}r),`$ (2.3)
we come to the equation

$$\phi ^{\prime \prime }+\left[\left(\frac{N22a}{2}\right)^2\lambda \right]\phi \phi ^{p1}=0.$$
(2.4)
All positive solutions of (2.4) in $`H^{1,2}()`$ are the translates of

$`\phi _1(t)=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{N(N22a)\sqrt{(N22a)^24\lambda }}{4(N2(1+ab))}}\right]^{\frac{N2(1+ab)}{4(1+ab)}}`$
$`\left(\mathrm{cosh}{\displaystyle \frac{(1+ab)\sqrt{(N22a)^24\lambda }}{N2(1+ab)}}t\right)^{\frac{N2(1+ab)}{2(1+ab)}},`$
namely $`\phi _\mu (t)=\phi _1(t\mathrm{ln}\mu )`$ for some $`\mu >0`$ (see ). Consequently all radial solutions of (2.1) are dilations of

$`z_1^{a,b,\lambda }(x)=\left[{\displaystyle \frac{N(N22a)\sqrt{(N22a)^24\lambda }}{N2(1+ab)}}\right]^{\frac{N2(1+ab)}{4(1+ab)}}`$
$`\left[|x|^{\left(1\frac{\sqrt{(N22a)^24\lambda }}{N22a}\right)\frac{(N22a)(1+ab)}{N2(1+ab)}}\left[1+|x|^{\frac{2(1+ab)\sqrt{(N22a)^24\lambda }}{N2(1+ab)}}\right]\right]^{\frac{N2(1+ab)}{2(1+ab)}}`$ (2.5)
and given by

$$z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda }(x)=\mu ^{\frac{N22a}{2}}z_1^{a,b,\lambda }\left(\frac{x}{\mu }\right),\mu >0.$$

Using the change of coordinates in (2.3), respectively (1.13), and the exponential decay of $`z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda }`$ in these coordinates it is easy to see that the map $`\mu z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda }`$ is at least twice continuously differentiable from $`(0,\mathrm{})`$ to $`𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ and we obtain

###### Lemma 2.1.

Suppose $`a,b,\lambda ,p`$ satisfy (1.2). Then the unperturbed functional $`f_0`$ has a one dimensional $`C^2`$-manifold of critical points $`Z_{a,b,\lambda }`$ given by $`\left\{z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda }\right|\mu >0\}`$. Moreover, $`Z_{a,b,\lambda }`$ is exactly the set of all radially symmetric, positive solutions of (2.1) in $`𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$.

In order to apply the abstract perturbation method we need to show that the manifold $`Z_{a,b,\lambda }`$ satisfy a non-degeneracy condition. This is the content of Theorem 1.1.

###### Proof of Theorem 1.1..

The inclusion $`T_{z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda }}Z_{a,b,\lambda }\mathrm{ker}D^2f_0(z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda })`$ always holds and is a consequence of the fact that $`Z_{a,b,\lambda }`$ is a manifold of critical points of $`f_0`$. Consequently, we have only to show that $`\mathrm{ker}D^2f_0(z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda })`$ is one dimensional. Fix $`u\mathrm{ker}D^2f_0(z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda })`$. The function $`u`$ is a solution of the linearized problem

$`\mathrm{div}(|x|^{2a}u){\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{|x|^{2(a+1)}}}u={\displaystyle \frac{p1}{|x|^{bp}}}(z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda })^{p2}u.`$ (2.6)
We expand $`u`$ in spherical harmonics

$$u(r\vartheta )=\underset{i=0}{\overset{\mathrm{}}{}}\stackrel{}{v}_i(r)\stackrel{}{Y}_i(\vartheta ),r^+,\vartheta 𝕊^{N1},$$

where $`\stackrel{}{v}_i(r)=_{𝕊^{N1}}u(r\vartheta )\stackrel{}{Y}_i(\vartheta )𝑑\vartheta `$ and $`\stackrel{}{Y}_i`$ denotes the orthogonal $`i`$-th spherical harmonic jet satisfying for all $`i_0`$

$`\mathrm{\Delta }_{𝕊^{N1}}\stackrel{}{Y}_i=i(N+i2)\stackrel{}{Y}_i.`$ (2.7)
Since $`u`$ solves (2.6) the functions $`\stackrel{}{v}_i`$ satisfy for all $`i0`$

$$\frac{\stackrel{}{v}_i^{\prime \prime }}{r^{2a}}\stackrel{}{Y}_i\frac{N12a}{r^{2a+1}}\stackrel{}{v}_i{}_{}{}^{}\stackrel{}{Y}_{i}^{}\frac{\stackrel{}{v}_i}{r^{2(a+1)}}\mathrm{\Delta }_\vartheta \stackrel{}{Y}_i\frac{\lambda }{r^{2(a+1)}}\stackrel{}{v}_i\stackrel{}{Y}_i=\frac{p1}{r^{bp}}(z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda })^{p2}\stackrel{}{v}_i\stackrel{}{Y}_i$$

and hence, in view of (2.7),

$`{\displaystyle \frac{\stackrel{}{v}_i^{\prime \prime }}{r^{2a}}}{\displaystyle \frac{N12a}{r^{2a+1}}}\stackrel{}{v}_i{}_{}{}^{}+{\displaystyle \frac{i(N+i2)}{r^{2(a+1)}}}\stackrel{}{v}_i{\displaystyle \frac{\lambda }{r^{2(a+1)}}}\stackrel{}{v}_i={\displaystyle \frac{p1}{r^{bp}}}(z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda })^{p2}\stackrel{}{v}_i.`$ (2.8)
Making in (2.8) the transformation (2.3) we obtain the equations

$$\stackrel{}{\phi }_i{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }\beta \mathrm{cosh}^2\left(\gamma (t\mathrm{ln}\mu )\right)\stackrel{}{\phi }_i=(\lambda \left(\frac{N22a}{2}\right)^2i(N+i2))\stackrel{}{\phi }_i,i_0,$$

where

$$\beta =\frac{N(N+2(1+ab))((N22a)^24\lambda )}{4(N2(1+ab))^2}\text{ and }\gamma =\frac{(1+ab)\sqrt{(N22a)^24\lambda }}{N2(1+ab)},$$

which is equivalent, through the change of variable $`\zeta (s)=\phi (s+\mathrm{ln}\mu )`$, to

$`\stackrel{}{\zeta }_i{}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }\beta \mathrm{cosh}^2(\gamma s)\stackrel{}{\zeta }_i=(\lambda \left({\displaystyle \frac{N22a}{2}}\right)^2i(N+i2))\stackrel{}{\zeta }_i,i_0.`$ (2.9)
It is known (see ,\[10, p. 74\]) that the negative part of the spectrum of the problem

$$\zeta {}_{}{}^{\prime \prime }\beta \mathrm{cosh}^2(\gamma s)\zeta =\nu \zeta $$

is discrete, consists of simple eigenvalues and is given by

$$\nu _j=\frac{\gamma ^2}{4}\left((1+2j)+\sqrt{1+4\beta \gamma ^2}\right)^2,j_0,0j<\frac{1}{2}\left(1+\sqrt{1+4\beta \gamma ^2}\right).$$

Thus we have for all $`i0`$ that zero is the only solution to (2.9) if and only if

$`A_i(a,\lambda )B_j(a,b,\lambda )\text{ for all }0j<{\displaystyle \frac{N}{2(1+ab)}},`$ (2.10)
where

$$A_i(a,\lambda )=\lambda \left(\frac{N22a}{2}\right)^2i(N+i2)$$

and

$$B_j(a,b,\lambda )=\frac{((N22a)^24\lambda )(1+ab)^2}{4(N2(1+ab))^2}\left[2j+\frac{N}{1+ab}\right]^2.$$

Note that $`A_0(a,\lambda )=B_1(a,b,\lambda )`$, $`A_i(a,\lambda )A_{i+1}(a,\lambda )`$ and $`B_j(a,b,\lambda )B_{j+1}(a,b,\lambda )`$, which is shown in figure 3 below.

Figure 3

Hence (2.10) is satisfied for $`i1`$ if and only if $`B_0(a,b,\lambda )A_i(a,b,\lambda )`$, which is equivalent to $`bh_i(a,\lambda )`$. On the other hand for $`i=0`$ equation (2.9) has a one dimensional space of nonzero solutions. Hence, $`\mathrm{ker}D^2f_0(z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda })`$ is one dimensional if and only if $`bh_i(a,\lambda )`$ for any $`i1`$, which proves the claim. ∎

###### Proof of Corollary 1.2.

We define $`I`$ on $`D_a^{1,2}(^N)\backslash \{0\}`$ by the right hand side of (1.7), i.e.

$$I(u):=\frac{u_a^2}{u_{p,b}^2}.$$

$`I`$ is twice continuously differentiable and

$`(I^{}(u),\phi )`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{2}{u_{p,b}^2}}\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{2a}u\phi {\displaystyle \frac{u_a^2}{u_{p,b}^p}}{\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{bp}|u|^{p2}u\phi \right).`$
Moreover, for positive critical points $`u`$ of $`I`$ a short computation leads to

$`(I^{\prime \prime }(u)\phi _1,\phi _2)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{2}{u_{p,b}^2}}\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{2a}\phi _1\phi _2{\displaystyle \frac{u_a^2}{u_{p,b}^p}}(p1){\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{bp}u^{p2}\phi _1\phi _2\right)`$
$`+(p2){\displaystyle \frac{2u_a^2}{u_{p,b}^{2p+2}}}\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{bp}u^{p1}\phi _1\right)\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{bp}u^{p1}\phi _2\right).`$
Obviously $`I`$ is constant on $`Z_{a,b,0}`$ and we obtain for $`z_1:=z_1^{a,b,0}`$ and all $`\phi _1,\phi _2𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$

$`(I^{}(z_1),\phi _1)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{2}{z_1_{p,b}^2}}(f_0^{}(z_1),\phi _1)=0,`$
$`(I^{\prime \prime }(z_1)\phi _1,\phi _2)`$ $`={\displaystyle \frac{2}{u_{p,b}^2}}(f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1)\phi _1,\phi _2)`$
$`+(p2){\displaystyle \frac{2}{z_1_{p,b}^{p+2}}}\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{bp}z_1^{p1}\phi _1\right)\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{bp}z_1^{p1}\phi _2\right).`$ (2.11)
From the proof of Theorem 1.1 we know that for $`b<h_1(a,0)`$ there exist functions $`\widehat{\phi }D_a^{1,2}(^N)`$ of the form $`\widehat{\phi }(x)=\overline{\phi }(|x|)Y_1(x/|x|)`$, where $`Y_1`$ denotes one of the first spherical harmonics, such that $`(f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1)\widehat{\phi },\widehat{\phi })<0`$. By (2) we get $`(I^{\prime \prime }(z_1)\widehat{\phi },\widehat{\phi })<0`$ because the integral $`|x|^{bp}z_1^{p1}\widehat{\phi }=0`$. Consequently $`𝒞_{a,b}^{}{}_{}{}^{1}`$ is strictly smaller than $`I(z_1)=I(z_\mu ^{a,b,0})`$. Since all positive radial solutions of (2.1) are given by $`z_\mu ^{a,b,0}`$ (see Lemma 2.1) and the infimum in (1.7) is attained (see \[7, Thm 1.2\]) the minimizer must be non-radial. ∎

As a particular case of Theorem 1.1 we can state

###### Corollary 2.2.

1. If $`0<a<\frac{N2}{2}`$ and $`0\lambda <\left(\frac{N22a}{2}\right)^2`$ then $`Z_{a,b,\lambda }`$ is non-degenerate for any $`b`$ between $`a`$ and $`a+1`$.
2. If $`a=0`$ and $`0\lambda <\left(\frac{N22a}{2}\right)^2`$, then $`Z_{0,b,\lambda }`$ is degenerate if and only if $`b=\lambda =0`$.

###### Remark 2.3.

If $`a=b=\lambda =0`$, equation (2.1) is invariant not only by dilations but also by translations. The manifold of critical points is in this case $`N+1`$-dimensional and given by the translations and dilations of $`z_1^{0,0,0}`$. Hence the one dimensional manifold $`Z_{0,0,0}`$ is degenerate. However, the full $`N+1`$-dimensional critical manifold is non-degenerate in the case $`a=b=\lambda =0`$ (see ).

## 3. The finite dimensional reduction

We follow the perturbative method developed in  and show that a finite dimensional reduction of our problem is possible whenever the critical manifold is non-degenerated. For simplicity of notation we write $`z_\mu `$ instead of $`z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda }`$ and $`Z`$ instead of $`Z_{a,b,\lambda }`$ if there is no possibility of confusion.

###### Lemma 3.1.

Suppose $`a,b,\lambda ,p`$ satisfy (1.2) and $`v`$ is a measurable function such that the integral $`|v|^{\frac{p}{p2}}|x|^{bp}`$ is finite. Then the operator $`J_v:D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$, defined by

$`J_v(u):=𝒦({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{pb}vu),`$ (3.1)
is compact.

###### Proof.

Fix a sequence $`(u_n)_n`$ converging weakly to zero in $`D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$. To prove the assertion it is sufficient to show that up to a subsequence $`J_v(u_n)0`$ as $`n\mathrm{}`$. Using the Hilbert space isomorphism given in (1.13) we see that the corresponding sequence $`(v_n)_n`$ converges weakly to zero in $`H_\lambda ^{1,2}(𝒞)`$. Since $`(v_n)_n`$ converges strongly in $`L^2(\mathrm{\Omega })`$ for all bounded domains $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ in $`𝒞`$, we may extract a subsequence that converges to zero pointwise almost everywhere. Going back to $`𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ we may assume that this also holds for $`(u_n)_n`$. By Hölder’s inequality and (1.3)

$`J_v(u_n)`$ $`\underset{h_{D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)}1}{sup}{\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{pb}|v||u_n||h|`$
$`\underset{h_{D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}}1}{sup}\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{pb}|h|^p\right)^{1/p}\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{pb}|v|^{\frac{p}{p1}}|u_n|^{\frac{p}{p1}}\right)^{(p1)/p}`$
$`C\left({\displaystyle _^N}|x|^{pb}|v|^{\frac{p}{p1}}|u_n|^{\frac{p}{p1}}\right)^{(p1)/p}.`$
To show that the latter integral converges to zero we use Vitali’s convergence theorem given for instance in \[9, 13.38\]. Obviously the functions $`||^{pb}|v|^{\frac{p}{p1}}|u_n|^{\frac{p}{p1}}`$ converge pointwise almost everywhere to zero. For any measurable $`\mathrm{\Omega }^N`$ we may estimate using Hölder’s inequality

$`{\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Omega }}|x|^{pb}|v|^{\frac{p}{p1}}|u_n|^{\frac{p}{p1}}`$ $`\left({\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Omega }}|x|^{pb}|v|^{\frac{p}{p2}}\right)^{(p2)/(p1)}\left({\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Omega }}|x|^{pb}|u_n|^p\right)^{1/(p1)}`$
$`C\left({\displaystyle _\mathrm{\Omega }}|x|^{pb}|v|^{\frac{p}{p2}}\right)^{(p2)/(p1)}`$
for some positive constant $`C`$. Taking $`\mathrm{\Omega }`$ a set of small measure or the complement of a large ball and the use of Vitali’s convergence theorem prove the assertion. ∎

Lemma 3.1 immediately leads to

###### Corollary 3.2.

For all $`zZ`$ the operator $`f_0^{\prime \prime }(z):D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ may be written as $`f_0^{\prime \prime }(z)=idJ_{|z|^{p2}}`$ and is consequently a self-adjoint Fredholm operator of index zero.

Define for $`\mu >0`$ the map $`U_\mu :D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ by

$`U_\mu (u):=\mu ^{\frac{N22a}{2}}u\left({\displaystyle \frac{x}{\mu }}\right).`$
It is easy to check that $`U_\mu `$ conserves the norms $``$ and $`_{p,b}`$, thus for every $`\mu >0`$

$`(U_\mu )^1`$ $`=(U_\mu )^t=U_{\mu ^1}\text{ and }f_0=f_0U_\mu `$ (3.2)
where $`(U_\mu )^t`$ denotes the adjoint of $`U_\mu `$. Twice differentiating the identity $`f_0=f_0U_\mu `$ yields for all $`h_1,h_2,vD_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$

$$(f_0^{\prime \prime }(v)h_1,h_2)=(f_0^{\prime \prime }(U_\mu (v))U_\mu (h_1),U_\mu (h_2)),$$

that is

$`f_0^{\prime \prime }(v)=(U_\mu )^1f_0^{\prime \prime }(U_\mu (v))U_\mu vD_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N).`$ (3.3)
Differentiating (3.2) we see that $`U(\mu ,z):=U_\mu (z)`$ maps $`(0,\mathrm{})\times Z`$ into $`Z`$, hence

$`{\displaystyle \frac{U}{z}}(\mu ,z)=U_\mu :T_zZT_{U_\mu (z)}Z\text{ and }U_\mu :(T_zZ)^{}(T_{U_\mu (z)}Z)^{}.`$ (3.4)
If the manifold $`Z`$ is non-degenerated the self-adjoint Fredholm operator $`f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1)`$ maps the space $`D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$ into $`T_{z_1}Z^{}`$ and $`f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1)(T_{z_1}Z^{})`$ is invertible. Consequently, using (3.3) and (3.4), we obtain in this case

$`(f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1))^1_{(T_{z_1}Z^{})}=(f_0^{\prime \prime }(z))^1_{(T_zZ^{})}zZ.`$ (3.5)
###### Lemma 3.3.

Suppose $`a,b,p,\lambda `$ satisfy (1.2) and (1.4) holds. Then there exists a constant $`C_1=C_1(k_{\mathrm{}},a,b,\lambda )>0`$ such that for any $`\mu >0`$ and for any $`w𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)`$

$`|G(z_\mu +w)|`$ $`C_1\left(|k|^{1/p}z_\mu _{p,b}^p+w^p\right)`$ (3.6)
$`G^{}(z_\mu +w)`$ $`C_1\left(|k|^{1/p}z_\mu _{p,b}^{p1}+w^{p1}\right)`$ (3.7)
$`G^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu +w)`$ $`C_1\left(|k|^{1/p}z_\mu _{p,b}^{p2}+w^{p2}\right).`$ (3.8)
Moreover, if $`lim_{|x|\mathrm{}}k(x)=:k(\mathrm{})=0=k(0)`$ then

$`|k|^{1/p}z_\mu _{p,b}0\text{ as }\mu \mathrm{}\text{ or }\mu 0.`$ (3.9)
###### Proof.

(3.6)-(3.8) are consequences of (1.3) and Hölder’s inequality. We will only show (3.8) as (3.6)-(3.7) follow analogously. By Hölder’s inequality and (1.3)

$`G^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu +w)`$ $`(p1)\underset{h_1,h_21}{sup}{\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{|k(x)|}{|x|^{bp}}}|z_\mu +w|^{p2}|h_1||h_2|`$
$`(p1)|k|^{1/p}_{\mathrm{}}^2\underset{h_1,h_21}{sup}|k|^{1/p}(z_\mu +w)_{p,b}^{p2}h_1_{p,b}h_2_{p,b}`$
$`c(k_{\mathrm{}},a,b,\lambda )|k|^{1/p}(z_\mu +w)_{p,b}^{p2}.`$
Using the triangle inequality and again (1.3) we obtain (3.8).
Under the additional assumption $`k(0)=k(\mathrm{})=0`$ estimate (3.9) follows by the dominated convergence theorem and

$`{\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{|k(x)|}{|x|^{bp}}}z_\mu ^p`$ $`={\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{|k(\mu x)|}{|x|^{bp}}}z_1^p.`$
###### Lemma 3.4.

Suppose $`a,b,p,\lambda `$ satisfy (1.2) and (1.4) and (1.5) hold. Then there exist constants $`\epsilon _0,C>0`$ and a smooth function

$$w=w(\mu ,\epsilon ):(0,+\mathrm{})\times (\epsilon _0,\epsilon _0)𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)$$

such that for any $`\mu >0`$ and $`\epsilon (\epsilon _0,\epsilon _0)`$

$`w(\mu ,\epsilon )\text{ is orthogonal to }T_{z_\mu }Z`$ (3.10)
$`f_\epsilon ^{}\left(z_\mu +w(\mu ,\epsilon )\right)T_{z_\mu }Z`$ (3.11)
$`w(\mu ,\epsilon )C|\epsilon |.`$ (3.12)
Moreover, if (1.8) holds then

$`w(\mu ,\epsilon )0\text{ as }\mu 0\text{ or }\mu \mathrm{}.`$ (3.13)
###### Proof.

Define $`H:(0,\mathrm{})\times D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)\times \times D_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)\times `$

$`H(\mu ,w,\alpha ,\epsilon ):=(f_\epsilon ^{}(z_\mu +w)\alpha \dot{\xi }_\mu ,(w,\dot{\xi }_\mu )),`$
where $`\dot{\xi }_\mu `$ denotes the normalized tangent vector $`\frac{d}{d\mu }z_\mu `$. If $`H(\mu ,w,\alpha ,\epsilon )=(0,0)`$ then $`w`$ satisfies (3.10)-(3.11) and $`H(\mu ,w,\alpha ,\epsilon )=(0,0)`$ if and only if $`(w,\alpha )=F_{\mu ,\epsilon }(w,\alpha )`$, where

$`F_{\mu ,\epsilon }(w,\alpha ):=\left({\displaystyle \frac{H}{(w,\alpha )}}(\mu ,0,0,0)\right)^1H(\mu ,w,\alpha ,\epsilon )+(w,\alpha ).`$
We prove that $`F_{\mu ,\epsilon }(w,\alpha )`$ is a contraction in some ball $`B_\rho (0)`$, where we may choose the radius $`\rho =\rho (\epsilon )>0`$ independent of $`zZ`$. To this end we observe

$`(\left({\displaystyle \frac{H}{(w,\alpha )}}(\mu ,0,0,0)\right)(w,\beta ),(f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu )w\beta \dot{\xi }_\mu ,(w,\dot{\xi }_\mu )))=f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu )w^2+\beta ^2+|(w,\dot{\xi }_\mu )|^2,`$ (3.14)
where

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{H}{(w,\alpha )}}(\mu ,0,0,0)\right)(w,\beta )=(f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu )w\beta \dot{\xi }_\mu ,(w,\dot{\xi }_\mu )).`$
From Corollary 3.2 and (3.14) we infer that $`\left(\frac{H}{(w,\alpha )}(\mu ,0,0,0)\right)`$ is an injective Fredholm operator of index zero, hence invertible and by (3.5) and (3.14) we obtain

$`\left({\displaystyle \frac{H}{(w,\alpha )}}(\mu ,0,0,0)\right)^1\mathrm{max}(1,(f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu ))^1)=\mathrm{max}(1,(f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1))^1)=:C_{}.`$ (3.15)
Suppose $`(w,\alpha )B_\rho (0)`$. We use (3.3) and (3.15) to see

$`F_{\mu ,\epsilon }(w,\alpha )`$ $`C_{}\left(H(\mu ,w,\alpha ,\epsilon )\left({\displaystyle \frac{H}{(w,\alpha )}}(\mu ,0,0,0)\right)(w,\alpha )\right)`$
$`C_{}f_\epsilon ^{}(z_\mu +w)f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu )w`$
$`C_{}{\displaystyle _0^1}f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu +tw)f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu )\text{ dt }w+C_{}|\epsilon |G^{}(z_\mu +w)`$
$`C_{}{\displaystyle _0^1}f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1+tU_{\mu ^1}(w))f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1)\text{ dt }w+C_{}|\epsilon |G^{}(z_\mu +w)`$
$`C_{}\rho \underset{w\rho }{sup}f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1+w)f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1)+C_{}|\epsilon |\underset{w\rho }{sup}G^{}(z_\mu +w).`$ (3.16)
Analogously we get for $`(w_1,\alpha _1),(w_2,\alpha _2)B_\rho (0)`$

$`{\displaystyle \frac{F_{\mu ,\epsilon }(w_1,\alpha _1)F_{\mu ,\epsilon }(w_2,\alpha _2)}{C_{}w_1w_2}}`$ $`{\displaystyle \frac{f_\epsilon ^{}(z_\mu +w_1)f_\epsilon ^{}(z_\mu +w_2)f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu )(w_1w_2)}{w_1w_2}}`$
$`{\displaystyle _0^1}f_\epsilon ^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu +w_2+t(w_1w_2))f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu )𝑑t`$
$`{\displaystyle _0^1}f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu +w_2+t(w_1w_2))f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu )𝑑t`$
$`+|\epsilon |{\displaystyle _0^1}G^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu +w_2+t(w_1w_2))𝑑t`$
$`\underset{w3\rho }{sup}f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1+w)f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1)+|\epsilon |\underset{w3\rho }{sup}G^{\prime \prime }(z_\mu +w).`$
We may choose $`\rho _0>0`$ such that

$$C_{}\underset{w3\rho _0}{sup}f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1+w)f_0^{\prime \prime }(z_1)<\frac{1}{2}$$

and $`\epsilon _0>0`$ such that

$`2\epsilon _0<\left(\underset{zZ,w3\rho _0}{sup}G^{\prime \prime }(z+w)\right)^1C_{}^1\text{ and }3\epsilon _0<\left(\underset{zZ,w\rho _0}{sup}G^{}(z+w)\right)^1C_{}^1\rho _0.`$
With these choices and the above estimates it is easy to see that for every $`z_\mu Z`$ and $`|\epsilon |<\epsilon _0`$ the map $`F_{\mu ,\epsilon }`$ maps $`B_{\rho _0}(0)`$ in itself and is a contraction there. Thus $`F_{\mu ,\epsilon }`$ has a unique fixed-point $`(w(\mu ,\epsilon ),\alpha (\mu ,\epsilon ))`$ in $`B_{\rho _0}(0)`$ and it is a consequence of the implicit function theorem that $`w`$ and $`\alpha `$ are continuously differentiable.
From (3.16) we also infer that $`F_{z,\epsilon }`$ maps $`B_\rho (0)`$ into $`B_\rho (0)`$, whenever $`\rho \rho _0`$ and

$$\rho >2|\epsilon |\left(\underset{w\rho }{sup}G^{}(z+w)\right)C_{}.$$

Consequently due to the uniqueness of the fixed-point we have

$`(w(z,\epsilon ),\alpha (z,\epsilon ))3|\epsilon |\left(\underset{w\rho _0}{sup}G^{}(z+w)\right)C_{},`$
which gives (3.12). Let us now prove (3.13). Set

$$\rho _\mu :=\mathrm{min}\{4\epsilon _0C_{}C_1|k|^{1/p}z_\mu _{p,b}^{p1},\rho _0,\left(\frac{1}{8\epsilon _0C_1C_{}}\right)^{\frac{1}{p2}}\}$$

where $`C_1`$ is given in Lemma 3.3. In view of (3.7) we have that for any $`|\epsilon |<\epsilon _0`$ and $`\mu >0`$

$`2|\epsilon |C_{}\underset{w\rho _\mu }{sup}G^{}(z_\mu +w)`$ $`2|\epsilon |C_{}C_1|k|^{1/p}z_\mu _{p,b}^{p1}+2|\epsilon |C_{}C_1\rho _\mu ^{p2}\rho _\mu .`$
Since $`\rho _\mu ^{p2}\frac{1}{8\epsilon _0C_1C_{}}`$ we have,

$`2|\epsilon |C_{}\underset{w\rho _\mu }{sup}G^{}(z_\mu +w)`$ $`<2|\epsilon |C_{}C_1|k|^{1/p}z_\mu _{p,b}^{p1}+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}\rho _\mu \rho _\mu ,`$
so that, by the above argument, we can conclude that $`F_{\mu ,\epsilon }`$ maps $`B_{\rho _\mu }(0)`$ into $`B_{\rho _\mu }(0)`$. Consequently due to the uniqueness of the fixed-point we have

$$w(\mu ,\epsilon )\rho _\mu .$$

Since by (3.9) we have that $`\rho _\mu 0`$ for $`\mu 0`$ and for $`\mu +\mathrm{}`$, we get (3.13). ∎

Under the assumptions of Lemma 3.4 we may define for $`|\epsilon |<\epsilon _0`$

$`Z_{a,b,\lambda }^\epsilon :=\left\{u𝒟_{a,\lambda }^{1,2}(^N)\right|u=z_\mu ^{a,b,\lambda }+w(\mu ,\epsilon ),\mu (0,\mathrm{})\}.`$ (3.17)
Note that $`Z^\epsilon `$ is a one dimensional manifold.

###### Lemma 3.5.

Under the assumptions of Lemma 3.4 we may choose $`\epsilon _0>0`$ such that for every $`|\epsilon |<\epsilon _0`$ the manifold $`Z^\epsilon `$ is a natural constraint for $`f_\epsilon `$, i.e. every critical point of $`f_\epsilon |_{Z^\epsilon }`$ is a critical point of $`f_\epsilon `$.

###### Proof.

Fix $`uZ^\epsilon `$ such that $`f_\epsilon |_{Z^\epsilon }^{}(u)=0`$. In the following we use a dot for the derivation with respect to $`\mu `$. Since $`(\dot{z}_\mu ,w(\mu ,\epsilon ))=0`$ for all $`\mu >0`$ we obtain

$`(\ddot{z}_\mu ,w(\mu ,\epsilon ))+(\dot{z}_\mu ,\dot{w}(\mu ,\epsilon ))=0.`$ (3.18)
Moreover differentiating the identity $`z_\mu =U_\sigma z_{\mu /\sigma }`$ with respect to $`\mu `$ we obtain

$`\dot{z}_\sigma ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma }}U_\sigma \dot{z}_1\text{ and }\ddot{z}_\sigma ={\displaystyle \frac{1}{\sigma ^2}}U_\sigma \ddot{z}_1.`$ (3.19)
From (3.11) we get that $`f_\epsilon ^{}(u)=c_1\dot{z}_\mu `$ for some $`\mu >0`$. By (3.18) and (3.19)

$`0`$ $`=(f_\epsilon ^{}(u),\dot{z}_\mu +\dot{w}(\mu ,\epsilon ))=c_1(\dot{z}_\mu ,\dot{z}_\mu +\dot{w}(\mu ,\epsilon ))`$
$`=c_1\mu ^2(\dot{z}_1^2(\ddot{z}_1,U_{\mu ^1}w(\mu ,\epsilon )))=c_1\mu ^2(\dot{z}_1^2\ddot{z}_1O(1)\epsilon )).`$
Finally we see that for small $`\epsilon >0`$ the number $`c_1`$ must be zero and the assertion follows. ∎

In view of the above result we end up facing a finite dimensional problem as it is enough to find critical points of the functional $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon :(0,\mathrm{})`$ given by $`f_\epsilon |_{Z^\epsilon }`$.

## 4. Study of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon `$

In this section we will assume that the critical manifold is non-degenerate, i.e. (1.5), such that the functional $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon `$ is defined. To find critical points of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon =f_\epsilon |_{Z^\epsilon }`$ it is convenient to introduce the functional $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ given below.

###### Lemma 4.1.

Suppose $`a,b,p,\lambda `$ satisfy (1.2) and (1.4) holds. Then

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon (\mu )=f_0(z_1)\epsilon \mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu )+o(\epsilon ),`$ (4.1)
where $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu )=G(z_\mu )`$. In particular, there is $`C>0`$, independent of $`\mu `$ and $`\epsilon `$, such that

$`|\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon (\mu )(f_0(z_1)\epsilon \mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu ))|C\left(w(\epsilon ,\mu )^2+(1+|\epsilon |)w(\epsilon ,\mu )^p+|\epsilon |w(\epsilon ,\mu )\right).`$ (4.2)
Consequently, if there exist $`0<\mu _1<\mu _2<\mu _3<\mathrm{}`$ such that

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu _2)>\mathrm{max}(\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu _1),\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu _3))\text{ or }\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu _2)<\mathrm{min}(\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu _1),\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu _3))`$ (4.3)
then $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon `$ will have a critical point, if $`\epsilon >0`$ is sufficiently small.

###### Proof.

Note that for all $`\mu >0`$ we have $`f_0(z_\mu )=f_0(z_1)`$,

$`z_\mu ^2={\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{z_\mu ^p}{|x|^{bp}}}\text{ and }(z_\mu ,w(\epsilon ,\mu ))={\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{z_\mu ^{p1}w(\epsilon ,\mu )}{|x|^{bp}}}.`$ (4.4)
From (4.4) we infer

$$\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon (\mu )=\frac{1}{2}_^N\frac{z_\mu ^p}{|x|^{bp}}+\frac{1}{2}w(\epsilon ,\mu )^2+_^N\frac{z_\mu ^{p1}w(\epsilon ,\mu )}{|x|^{bp}}\frac{1}{p}_^N\frac{(1+\epsilon k)\left(z_\mu +w(\epsilon ,\mu )\right)^p}{|x|^{bp}}$$

and

$$f_0(z_1)=f_0(z_\mu )=\frac{1}{2}z_\mu ^2\frac{1}{p}_^N\frac{z_\mu ^p}{|x|^{bp}}=\left(\frac{1}{2}\frac{1}{p}\right)_^N\frac{z_\mu ^p}{|x|^{bp}}.$$

Hence

$`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon (\mu )=f_0(z_1)\epsilon \mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu )+{\displaystyle \frac{1}{2}}w(\epsilon ,\mu )^2{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p}}H_\epsilon (\mu ),`$ (4.5)
where

$$H_\epsilon (\mu )=_^N\frac{\left(z_\mu +w(\epsilon ,\mu )\right)^pz_\mu ^ppz_\mu ^{p1}w(\epsilon ,\mu )+\epsilon k\left((z_\mu +w(\epsilon ,\mu ))^pz_\mu ^p\right)}{|x|^{bp}}.$$

Using the inequality

$$(z+w)^{s1}z^{s1}(p1)z^{s2}w\{\begin{array}{cc}C(z^{s3}w^2+w^{s1})\hfill & \text{if}s3\hfill \\ Cw^{s1}\hfill & \text{if}2<s<3,\hfill \end{array}$$

where $`C=C(s)>0`$, with $`s=p+1`$ and Hölder’s inequality we have for some $`c_2,c_3>0`$

$`|H_\epsilon (\mu )|`$ $`{\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{\left|\left(z_\mu +w(\epsilon ,\mu )\right)^pz_\mu ^ppz_\mu ^{p1}w(\epsilon ,\mu )\right|}{|x|^{bp}}}+|\epsilon |{\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{|k|\left((z_\mu +w(\epsilon ,\mu ))^pz_\mu ^p\right)}{|x|^{bp}}}`$
$`c_2\left[{\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{z_\mu ^{p2}w^2(\epsilon ,\mu )}{|x|^{bp}}}+{\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{|w(\epsilon ,\mu )|^p}{|x|^{bp}}}+|\epsilon |{\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{z_\mu ^{p1}|w(\epsilon ,\mu )|}{|x|^{bp}}}+|\epsilon |{\displaystyle _^N}{\displaystyle \frac{|w(\epsilon ,\mu )|^p}{|x|^{bp}}}\right]`$
$`c_3\left[w(\epsilon ,\mu )^2+(1+|\epsilon |)w(\epsilon ,\mu )^p+|\epsilon |w(\epsilon ,\mu )\right]`$
and the claim follows. ∎

Although it is convenient to study only the reduced functional $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ instead of $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon `$, it may lead in some cases to a loss of information, i.e. $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ may be constant even if $`k`$ is a non-constant function. This is due to the fact that the critical manifold consists of radially symmetric functions. Thus $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ is constant for every $`k`$ that has constant mean-value over spheres, i.e.

$$\frac{1}{r^{N1}}_{B_r(0)}k(x)𝑑S(x)\text{const }r>0\text{.}$$

In this case we have to study the functional $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon (\mu )`$ directly.

###### Proof of Theorem 1.3.

By (1.8), (3.9), (3.13) and (4.2)

$$\underset{\mu 0^+}{lim}\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon (\mu )=\underset{\mu +\mathrm{}}{lim}\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon (\mu )=f_0(z_1).$$

Hence, either the functional $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon f_0(z_1)`$, and we obtain infinitely many critical points, or $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon f_0(z_1)`$ and $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon `$ has at least a global maximum or minimum. In any case $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon `$ has a critical point that provides a solution of $`(𝒫_{a,b,\lambda })`$. ∎

The next lemma shows that it is possible (and convenient) to extend the $`C^2`$ functional $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ by continuity to $`\mu =0`$. The proof of this fact is analogous to the one in \[3, Lem. 3.4\] and we omit it here.

###### Lemma 4.2.

Under the assumptions of Lemma 4.1

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }(0):=\underset{\mu 0}{lim}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu )=k(0){\displaystyle \frac{1}{p}}z_1_{p,b}^p\text{ and}`$ (4.6)
$`{\displaystyle \frac{1}{p}}\underset{|x|\mathrm{}}{lim\; inf}k(x)z_1_{p,b}^p\underset{\mu \mathrm{}}{lim\; inf}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu )\underset{\mu \mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu ){\displaystyle \frac{1}{p}}\underset{|x|\mathrm{}}{lim\; sup}k(x)z_1_{p,b}^p.`$ (4.7)
If, moreover, (1.9) holds we obtain

$`\mathrm{\Gamma }^{}(0)=0\text{ and }\mathrm{\Gamma }^{\prime \prime }(0)={\displaystyle \frac{\mathrm{\Delta }k(0)}{Np}}{\displaystyle |x|^2\frac{z_1(x)^p}{|x|^{bp}}}.`$ (4.8)
###### Proof of Theorem 1.4.

To see that assumptions (1.10) and (1.11) give rise to a critical point we use the functional $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$. Condition (1.10) and Lemma 4.2 imply that $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$ has a global maximum strictly bigger than $`\mathrm{\Gamma }(0)`$ and $`lim\; sup_\mu \mathrm{}\mathrm{\Gamma }(\mu )`$. Consequently $`\mathrm{\Phi }_\epsilon `$ has a critical point in view of Lemma 4.1. The same reasoning yields a critical point under condition (1.11). ∎