$BMO$ and gradient estimates for solutions of critical elliptic equations

Abstract

In this paper we explore several applications of the recently introduced spaces of functions of bounded $\beta$-dimensional mean oscillation for $\beta \in (0,n]$ to regularity theory of critical exponent elliptic equations. We first show that functions with gradient in weak-$L^n$ are in $BMO^\beta$ for any $\beta \in (0,n]$, improving the classical result $\nabla u\in L^n$ implies $u\in BMO$. We apply this result to the Poisson equation $-\Delta u = \operatorname*{div} F$ with zero boundary conditions in a bounded $C^1$ domain to show that $u\in BMO^{\beta}$ when $F$ is in weak-$L^n$. Next, we consider the $n$-Laplace equation \begin{align*} -\operatorname*{div}( |\nabla U|^{n-2} \nabla U) &= F \text{ in } \Omega, \newline U &=0 \text{ on }\partial \Omega. \end{align*} with $F\in L^1(\Omega)$ and show that the classical result $u\in BMO$ can be improved to $u\in BMO^\beta$. Finally, we consider the $n$-Laplace equation in the case when $F \in L^1$, $\operatorname*{div} F=0$ and prove that for smooth domains $\Omega$ we have the estimate \begin{align*} \|\nabla U \|_{L^n} \mathbb \leq C \, \|F\|^{1/(n-1)}_{L^1}, \end{align*} where the constant $C$ is independent of $F$.