Existence and regularity of weak solution to elliptic type equation

analysiselliptic-equationspartial differential equations

I'm considering a elliptic type equation which is
$$-\Delta u+\int_{\Omega}u dx=f\mbox{ and }\partial_{n}u|_{\partial\Omega}=0$$
where $f$ is a given $L^2(\Omega)$ function and $\Omega$ is a open bounded domain.
My thought is to apply Lax-Milgram theorem just like the usual elliptic operator but how do I view $\int_{\Omega}u dx$ into the bilinear form?
Besides, assume further that we already have a weak solution say $u\in H^{1}(\Omega)$, I'm thinking that this implies
$$-\Delta u=f-\int_{\Omega}udx\in L^{2}(\Omega)$$
due to $u\in L^2(\Omega)$ and boundedness on $\Omega$. So by the elliptic regularity theorem, I can have $u\in H^{2}(\Omega)$ and an estimate
$$\lVert u\rVert_{H^{2}}\leq C\left(\lVert u\rVert_{L^{2}}+\lVert f-\int_{\Omega}u dx\rVert_{L^{2}}\right).$$
Does this thought make sense?

Best Answer

As suggested in the comments, for a fixed $k \in \mathbb R$ you can always find a weak (or variational) solution of the problem $$ \left\lbrace \begin{array}{cccl} -\Delta u + k &=& f & \text{in}& \Omega\\ \partial_nu &=& 0 & \text{on }& \partial \Omega \end{array}\right. $$ Note that you should impose regularity conditions on the boundary of $\Omega$ to that the trace is well defined, for instance Lipschitz boundary. It is clear that the solution is unique, hence you get a map $\Phi : \mathbb R \rightarrow L^2(\Omega)$.

Now you wish to use regularity theory in the sens that any $u \in H^1(\Omega)$ that solves the above problem is in fact $H^2$ with $$\|u\|_{H^2(\Omega)} \leq c \|\Delta u \|_{L^2(\Omega)} $$ where $c$ does not depend on $u$. To this aim you need to ask more regularity for $\partial \Omega$, I think that $\partial \Omega$ of class $C^2$ would be enough. If this is the case, $\Phi$ is in fact valued in $H^2(\Omega)$.

Finally we want to solve $$ \left\lbrace \begin{array}{cccl} -\Delta u + \int u &=& f & \text{in}& \Omega\\ \partial_nu &=& 0 & \text{on }& \partial \Omega \end{array}\right. $$ Note that this problem has at most one solution, so we are left to find a solution. Said in other words, we wish to find $u \in H^2(\Omega)$ such that $$ \Phi \int u = u. $$ Note that we can look at $u \in L^1(\Omega)$ solving the above equation: by regularity theory such a $u$ would be $H^2$. To this aim consider $\Psi : L^1(\Omega) \rightarrow L^1(\Omega)$ defined by $$ \Psi u = \Phi \int u, $$ it is enough to find a fixed point to $\Psi$. In view of the Schauder fixed point theorem and the Sobolev embeddings, it remains only to show that $\Psi$ is continuous. Being $\int : L^1(\Omega) \rightarrow \mathbb R$ continuous, it is enough to show that $\Phi : \mathbb R \rightarrow L^1(\Omega)$ is continuous. To this aim pick $\lambda,\mu \in \mathbb R$, write $\Phi(\lambda) = u$ and $\Phi(\mu) = v$ and compute $$ \|\Phi(\lambda) - \Phi(\mu)\|_{L^1(\Omega)} = \|u-v\|_{L^1(\Omega)} \lesssim \|u-v\|_{H^2(\Omega)} \leq c \| \Delta (u-v)\|_{L^2(\Omega)} = c |\lambda - \mu| |\Omega|^{1/2}. $$