Existence of solutions for semilinear elliptic boundary value problems on arbitrary open sets

Abstract

We show the existence of a weak solution of a semilinear elliptic Dirichlet problem on an arbitrary open set. We make no assumptions about the open set, very mild regularity assumptions on the semilinearity, plus a coerciveness assumption which depends on the optimal Poincare-Steklov constant. The proof is based on Schaefer's fixed point theorem applied to a sequence of truncated problems. We state a simple uniqueness result. We also generalize the results to Robin boundary conditions.