Superlinear elliptic inequalities on manifolds

Abstract

Let $M$ be a complete non-compact Riemannian manifold and let $\sigma $ be a Radon measure on $M$. We study the problem of existence or non-existence of positive solutions to a semilinear elliptic inequaliy \begin{equation*} -\Delta u\geq \sigma u^{q}\quad \text{in}\,\,M, \end{equation*} where $q>1$. We obtain necessary and sufficent criteria for existence of positive solutions in terms of Green function of $\Delta $. In particular, explicit necessary and sufficient conditions are given when $M$ has nonnegative Ricci curvature everywhere in $M$, or more generally when Green's function satisfies the 3G-inequality.