Supercritical Schr\"odinger equations involving integro-differential operators and vanishing potentials

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the study of the existence of positive and bounded solutions for a Schr\"odinger type equation defined on the entire Euclidean space, involving a general integro-differential operator. We consider the case where the potential is nonnegative and vanishes at infinity with a nonlinearity exhibiting critical or supercritical growth in the Sobolev sense. To overcome the lack of compactness and the difficulties imposed by the general structure of the nonlinearity, we employ variational methods combined with a penalization technique. Unlike the classical fractional Laplacian framework, where specific regularity results, decay estimates, and the $s$-harmonic extension are available, our approach relies on a weak Maximum Principle combined with the construction of a supersolution based on the truncated fundamental solution of the fractional Laplacian to control the asymptotic behavior of the solutions. We prove that, for sufficiently small perturbation parameters and under suitable decay conditions on the potential, the equation admits a nontrivial solution.