New linking theorems (Q1126559)

Technicalities aside, two disjoint subsets \(A\) and \(B\) of a Banach space are linked if it is not possible to continuously deform \(A\) to a point without touching \(B\) somewhere. This paper gives several different conditions under which two sets \(A\) and \(B\) are guaranteed to be linked and proves the result that a \(C^1\) functional with the property that \[ \sup_A G\leq \inf_BG \quad A\text{ bounded, } A\text{ and }B \text{ linked} \tag{*} \] has a sequence \(\{u_k\}\) such that \(G(u_k)\) converges and \((1+\| u_k\|) G'(u_k)\to 0\) as \(k\to\infty\). In many cases this result implies the existence of a nontrivial critical point of \(G\). The paper uses these ideas to prove that the equation \(Au= f(x,u)\), where \(A\) is a self-adjoint operator on \(L^2 (\Omega)\) with compact resolvent and \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^n\) has a solution given appropriate conditions on \(f\). This is accomplished by showing that the corresponding functional \[ G(u)= \| u\|^2_D -2\int_\Omega F(x,u)dx \] in which \(\| \cdot \|_D\) is the norm induced by \(A^{1/2}\) and \(\partial F/ \partial u=f\) satisfies (*) on linked sets.