Existence of solutions to nonlinear, subcritical higher order elliptic Dirichlet problems

We consider the 2m-th order elliptic boundary value problem Lu=f(x,u) on a bounded smooth domain with Dirichlet boundary conditions on ∂Ω. The operator L is a uniformly elliptic linear operator of order 2m whose principle part is of the form . We assume that f is superlinear at the origin and satisfies , , where are positive functions and q>1 is subcritical. By combining degree theory with new and recently established a priori estimates, we prove the existence of a nontrivial solution.