The nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation on products of $\mathbb{R}^N$ and compact metric graphs

Abstract

We study the stationary focusing nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation on the product $\mathbb{R}^N \times \mathcal{G}$ of the Euclidean space with a compact metric graph, in the mass-constrained variational setting. Such a product is a hybrid structure of a new type: all its faces are $(N+1)$-dimensional and are glued along interfaces of codimension one, so that the energy space is a genuine Sobolev space, while both the metric and the topology of the graph enter the variational problem. We first develop the functional framework, giving two equivalent descriptions of $H^1(\mathbb{R}^N \times \mathcal{G})$, introducing partial rearrangements in each of the two variables together with the corresponding P\'olya--Szeg\H{o} inequalities, and proving Gagliardo--Nirenberg inequalities in a localized form, with a comparison of the optimal constants with those of $\mathbb{R}^{N+1}$ and of the half-space. We then study the mass-constrained problem. Ground states exist for every mass when $2<p<2_*:=2+4/(N+1)$. At the critical exponent $p=2_*$, they exist below a graph-dependent threshold lying between one half of the Euclidean critical mass and the full Euclidean critical mass. The latter value is attained when the graph admits a cycle covering, whereas the threshold is exactly halved in the presence of a terminal edge. In both cases, the threshold is sharp. For $2_*<p<2+4/N$ global minimizers do not exist, but we prove the existence of local minimizers below a further mass threshold, for which we give an explicit lower bound. Finally, we describe the dimensional crossover: below a critical mass the minimizers do not depend on the graph variable, and we characterize the threshold below which the semi-trivial solution is a local minimizer in terms of the first nonzero eigenvalue of the Kirchhoff Laplacian on $\mathcal{G}$.