Principal eigenvalues and eigenfunctions for fully nonlinear equations in punctured balls

This paper is devoted to the proof of the existence of the principal eigenvalue and related eigenfunctions for fully nonlinear uniformly elliptic equations posed in a punctured ball, in presence of a singular potential. More precisely, we analyze existence, uniqueness and regularity of solutions $({\overline{\lambda }}_{\gamma },u_{\gamma })$ of the equation$F\left(D^2{u}_{\gamma }\right)+{\overline{\lambda }}_{\gamma }\frac{u_{\gamma }}{r^{\gamma }}=0\mathrm{in}B(0,1)\setminus \left\{0\right\},u_{\gamma }=0\mathrm{on}\partial B(0,1)$ where $u_{\gamma }>0$ in $B(0,1)\setminus \left\{0\right\}$ and $\gamma >0$. We prove existence of radial solutions which are continuous on $\overline{B(0,1)}$ in the case $\gamma <2$, existence of unbounded solutions in the case $\gamma =2$ and a non existence result for $\gamma >2$. We also give, in the case of Pucci's operators, the explicit value of ${\overline{\lambda }}_2$, which generalizes the Hardy–Sobolev constant for the Laplacian.