Regularizing effects concerning elliptic equations with a superlinear gradient term

Abstract

We consider the homogeneous Dirichlet problem for an elliptic equation driven by a linear operator with discontinuous coefficients and having a subquadratic gradient term. This gradient term behaves as $g(u)|\nabla u|^q$, where $1<q<2$ and $g(s)$ is a continuous function. Data belong to $L^m(\Omega)$ with $1\le m <\frac{N}{2}$ as well as measure data instead of $L^1$-data, so that unbounded solutions are expected. Our aim is, given $1\le m<\frac N2$ and $1<q<2$, to find the suitable behaviour of $g$ close to infinity which leads to existence for our problem. We show that the presence of $g$ has a regularizing effect in the existence and summability of the solution. Moreover, our results adjust with continuity with known results when either $g(s)$ is constant or $q=2$.