Gradient estimates of very weak solutions to general quasilinear elliptic equations

Abstract

We establish a gradient estimate for a very weak solution to a quasilinear elliptic equation with a nonstandard growth condition, which is a natural generalization of the $p$-Laplace equation. We investigate the maximum extent for the gradient estimate to hold without imposing any regularity assumption on the nonlinearity other than basic structure assumptions. Our results also include a higher integrability result of the gradient and the existence for the very weak solutions to such nonlinear problems.