Least energy solutions to the Dirichlet problem for the equation −D(u) = f (x, u)

Let be a bounded smooth domain in RN. We prove a general existence result of least energy solutions and least energy nodal ones for the problem −u = f(x, u) in u = 0 on ∂ (P) where f is a Carathéodory function. Our result includes some previous results related to special cases of f . Finally, we propose some open questions concerning the global minima of the restriction on the Nehari manifold of the energy functional associated with (P) when the nonlinearity is of the type f(x, u) = λ|u| s−2u − μ|u| r−2u, with s, r ∈ (1, 2) and λ,μ > 0.