4 F eb 2 00 5 Singular elliptic problems with lack of compactness

We consider the following nonlinear singular elliptic equation −div (|x| −2a ∇u) = K(x)|x| −bp |u| p−2 u + λg(x) in R N , where g belongs to an appropriate weighted Sobolev space, and p denotes the Caffarelli–Kohn– Nirenberg critical exponent associated to a, b, and N. Under some natural assumptions on the positive potential K(x) we establish the existence of some λ 0 > 0 such that the above problem has at least two distinct solutions provided that λ ∈ (0, λ 0). The proof relies on Ekeland's Variational Principle and on the Mountain Pass Theorem without the Palais-Smale condition, combined with a weighted variant of the Brezis-Lieb Lemma.