On logarithmic double phase problems

Abstract: In this paper we introduce a new logarithmic double phase type operator of the form\begin{align*}\mathcal{G}u:=-\operatorname{div}\left(|\nabla u|^{p(x)-2}\nabla u+\mu(x)\left[\log(e+|\nabla u|)+\frac{|\nabla u|}{q(x)(e+|\nabla u|)}\right]|\nabla u|^{q(x)-2} \nabla u \right),\end{align*}where $\Omega\subseteq\mathbb{R}^N$, $N\geq 2$, is a bounded domain with Lipschitz boundary $\partial\Omega$, $p,q\in C(\overline{\Omega})$ with $1<p(x)\leq q(x)$ for all $x\in\overline{\Omega}$ and $0\leq\mu(\cdot)\in L^1(\Omega)$. First, we prove that the logarithmic Musielak-Orlicz Sobolev spaces $W^{1,\mathcal{H}_{\log}}(\Omega)$ and $W^{1, \mathcal{H}{\log}}_0(\Omega)$ with $\mathcal{H}{\log}(x,t)=t^{p(x)}+\mu(x)t^{q(x)}\log(e+t)$ for $(x,t)\in \overline{\Omega}\times [0,\infty)$ are separable, reflexive Banach spaces and $W^{1,\mathcal{H}_{\log}}_0(\Omega)$ can be equipped with an equivalent norm. We also prove several embedding results for these spaces and the closedness of these spaces under truncations. In addition we show the density of smooth functions in $W^{1,\mathcal{H}_{\log}}(\Omega)$ even in the case of an unbounded domain by supposing Nekvinda's decay condition on $p(\cdot)$. The second part is devoted to the properties of the operator and it turns out that it is bounded, continuous, strictly monotone, of type (S$_+$), coercive and a homeomorphism. As a result of independent interest we also present a new version of Young's inequality for the product of a power-law and a logarithm. In the last part of this work we consider equations driven by our new operator with superlinear right-hand sides. We prove multiplicity results for this type of equation, in particular about sign-changing solutions, by making use of a suitable variation of the corresponding Nehari manifold together with the quantitative deformation lemma and the Poincar\'e-Miranda existence theorem.