Existence of positive solutions for Kirchhoff type problems with critical exponent in exterior domains

Abstract: In this paper, by using variational methods we study the existence of positive solutions for the following Kirchhoff type problem: $$ \left{ \begin{array}{ll} -\left(a+b\mathlarger{\int}{\Omega}|\nabla u|^{2}dx\right)\Delta u+V(x)u=u^{5}, \ & x\in\Omega,\ \ u=0,\ & x\in\partial \Omega, \end{array}\right. $$ where $a>0$, $b\geq0$, $\Omega\subset\mathbb R^3$ is an unbounded exterior domain, $\partial\Omega\neq\emptyset$, $\mathbb{R}^{3}\backslash\Omega$ is bounded, $u\in D{0}^{1,2}(\Omega)$, and $V\in L^{\frac{3}{2}}(\Omega)$ is a non-negative continuous function. It turns out that the above Kirchhoff equation has no ground state solution. Nonetheless, by establishing some global compact lemma and constructing a suitable minimax value $c$ at a higher energy level where so called Palais-Smale condition holds, we succeed to obtain a positive solution for such a problem whenever $V$ and the hole $\mathbb{R}^{3}\setminus\Omega$ are suitable small in some senses. To the best of our knowledge, there are few similar results published in the literature concerning the existence of positive solutions for Kirchhoff equation in exterior domains. Our result also holds true in the case $\Omega=\mathbb R^3$, particularly, if $a=1$ and $b=0$, we improve some existing results (such as Benci, Cerami, Existence of positive solutions of the equation $-\Delta u+a(x)u=u^{(N+2)/(N-2)}$ in $\emph{R}^{N}$, J. Funct. Anal., 88 (1990), 90--117) for the corresponding Schr\"odinger equation in the whole space.