Fine structure of rupture set for semilinear elliptic equation with singular nonlinearity

Abstract

In this paper, we study the stationary solutions of semilinear elliptic equation with singular nonlinearity $$ \Delta u=u^{-p}+f,\,\,u\geq 0\text{ in }\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n, $$ where $ n\geq 2 $, $ p>1 $, $ \Omega $ is a bounded domain, and $ f\in L^q(\Omega) $ with $ \frac{1}{2}+\frac{1}{2p}<\frac{q}{n} $. We establish a sharp estimate for the Minkowski content of the rupture set $ \{u=0\} $ and demonstrate that this set is $ (n-2) $-rectifiable. For this, we examine the stratification of the rupture set based on the symmetry properties of tangent functions, leading to the proof of $ k $-rectifiability for each $ k $-stratum. As a significant byproduct of our analysis, we improve the integrability of $ D^ju $ with $ j\in\mathbb{Z}_+ $ to the optimal Lorentz space $ L^{\frac{2(p+1)}{j(p+1)-2},\infty} $, under the assumption that $ D^{j-1}f $ is bounded. As an application of our results in the static case of the equation, for a class of suitable weak solutions to the three-dimensional evolutional problem $$ \partial_tu=\Delta u-u^{-p},\,\,u\geq 0\text{ in }(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^3)\times(0,T), $$ where $ p>3 $ and $ T>0 $, we show that $ \{u(\cdot,t)=0\} $ is $ 1 $-rectifiable for a.e. $ t\in(0,T) $.