Positive solutions of semipositone elliptic problems with critical Trudinger-Moser nonlinearities

We prove the existence of a positive solution to a semipositone $N$-Laplacian problem with a critical Trudinger-Moser nonlinearity. The proof is based on obtaining uniform $C^{1,\alpha}$ a priori estimates via a compactness argument. Our result is new even in the semilinear case $N = 2$, and our arguments can easily be adapted to obtain positive solutions of more general semipositone problems with critical Trudinger-Moser nonlinearities.