Study of fractional semipositone problems on RN

Abstract

Let $s\in (0,1)$ and $N\gt 2s$. In this paper, we consider the following class of nonlocal semipositone problems: $(-\Delta)^s u= g(x)f_a(u)\text{ in }\mathbb{R}^N,\quad u \gt 0\text{ in }\mathbb{R}^N,$ where the weight $g \in L^1(\mathbb{R}^N) \cap L^{\infty}(\mathbb{R}^N)$ is positive, $a\gt 0$ is a parameter, and $f_a \in \mathcal{C}(\mathbb{R})$ is strictly negative on $(-\infty,0]$. For $f_a$ having subcritical growth and weaker Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz type nonlinearity, we prove that the above problem admits a mountain pass solution $u_a$, provided a is near zero. To obtain the positivity of $u_a$, we establish a Brezis-Kato type uniform estimate of $(u_a)$ in $L^r(\mathbb{R}^N)$ for every $r \in [\frac{2N}{N-2s}, \infty]$.