Best constants in a borderline case of second-order Moser type inequalities

We study optimal embeddings for the space of functions whose Laplacian Δu belongs to L1(Ω), where Ω⊂RN is a bounded domain. This function space turns out to be strictly larger than the Sobolev space W2,1(Ω) in which the whole set of second-order derivatives is considered. In particular, in the limiting Sobolev case, when N=2, we establish a sharp embedding inequality into the Zygmund space Lexp(Ω). On one hand, this result enables us to improve the Brezis–Merle (Brezis and Merle (1991) [13], ) regularity estimate for the Dirichlet problem Δu=f(x)∈L1(Ω), u=0 on ∂Ω; on the other hand, it represents a borderline case of D.R. Adams' (1988) [1] generalization of Trudinger–Moser type inequalities to the case of higher-order derivatives. Extensions to dimension N⩾3 are also given. Besides, we show how the best constants in the embedding inequalities change under different boundary conditions.