Boundary trace of positive solutions of semilinear elliptic equations in Lipschitz domains

Moshe Marcus, Laurent Veron

Published 2009-07-06, updated 2009-07-16Version 3

We study the generalized boundary value problem for nonnegative solutions of $-\Delta u+g(u)=0$ in a bounded Lipschitz domain $\Gw$, when $g$ is continuous and nondecreasing. Using the harmonic measure of $\Gw$, we define a trace in the class of outer regular Borel measures. We amphasize the case where $g(u)=|u|^{q-1}u$, $q>1$. When $\Gw$ is (locally) a cone with vertex $y$, we prove sharp results of removability and characterization of singular behavior. In the general case, assuming that $\Gw$ possesses a tangent cone at every boundary point and $q$ is subcritical, we prove an existence and uniqueness result for positive solutions with arbitrary boundary trace. We obtain sharp results involving Besov spaces with negative index on k-dimensional edges and apply our results to the characterization of removable sets and good measures on the boundary of a polyhedron.