Symmetry and symmetry breaking for ground state solutions of some strongly coupled elliptic systems

We consider the ground state solutions of the Lane–Emden system with Hénon-type weights − u = |x|β|v|q−1v, − v = |x|α|u|p−1u in the unit ball B of RN with Dirichlet boundary conditions, where N 1, α,β 0, p, q > 0 and 1/(p + 1) + 1/(q + 1) > (N − 2)/N. We show that such ground state solutions u, v always have definite sign in B and exhibit a foliated Schwarz symmetry with respect to a unit vector of RN. We also give precise conditions on the parameters α, β, p and q under which the ground state solutions are not radially symmetric. © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved