Optimal Liouville theorems for the Lane-Emden equation on Riemannian manifolds

We study degenerate quasilinear elliptic equations on Riemannian manifolds and obtain several Liouville theorems. Notably, we provide rigorous proof asserting the nonexistence of positive solutions to the subcritical Lane-Emden-Fowler equations over complete Riemannian manifolds with nonnegative Ricci curvature. These findings serve as a significant generalization of Gidas and Spruck’s pivotal work (Comm. Pure Appl. Math. 34, 525-598, 1981) which focused on the semilinear case, as well as Serrin and Zou’s contributions (Acta Math. 189, 79-142, 2002) within the context of Euclidean geometries.