On positive solutions of fully nonlinear degenerate Lane-Emden type equations

Abstract: We prove existence and uniqueness results of positive viscosity solutions of fully nonlinear degenerate elliptic equations with power-like zero order perturbations in bounded domains. The principal part of such equations is either $\mathcal{P}<sup>-_{k}(D<sup>2u)$ or $\mathcal{P}<sup>+_{k}(D<sup>2u)$, some sort of \lq\lq truncated Laplacians\rq\rq, given respectively by the smallest and the largest partial sum of $k$ eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix. New phenomena with respect to the semilinear case occur. Moreover, for $\mathcal{P}<sup>-_{k}$, we explicitely find the critical exponent $p$ of the power nonlinearity that separates the existence and nonexistence range of nontrivial solutions with zero Dirichlet boundary condition.