A class of subelliptic quasilinear equations

Abstract

Suppose $\mathfrak {X} = \{X_1, X_2, \ldots,\,X_m\}$ is a system of real smooth vector fields on an open neighbourhood Ω of the closure of a bounded connected open set M in $\mathbb {R}^N$ satisfying the finite rank condition of Hörmander, namely the rank of the Lie algebra generated by $\mathfrak {X}$ under the usual bracket operation is a constant equal to N. We study the smoothness of solutions of a class of quasilinear equations of the form

$$Q_{\mathfrak {X}}u = \sum _{j=1}^m X_j^*a_j(x, u, Xu) +b (x, u, Xu) = 0$$

where $a_j,\,b \in C^{\infty}(\Omega \times \mathbb {R} \times \mathbb {R}^m; \mathbb {R})$. It is shown that if the matrix $\left({\frac {\partial a_j}{\partial \xi_i}}\right)$ is positive definite on $M \times \mathbb {R}^{m+1}$ then any weak solution $u \in \mathcal {C}^{2,\alpha}(M, \mathfrak {X})$ belongs to C ^∞(M).