Classical and non-classical solutions of a prescribed curvature equation (Q2464468)

The authors discuss the existence and multiplicity of positive concave solutions to the Dirichlet boundary vaule problem connected with the one-dimensional prescribed curvature problem, namely \[ -\bigl( -u'\sqrt{1+u^{\prime2}}\bigr)'=\lambda f( t,u) , u( 0) =u( 1) =0, \] where \(\lambda >0\) is a parameter and with a Carathéodory nonlinearity \(f:[ 0,1] \times R\rightarrow[ 0,+\infty) \) such that for each \(r>0\) there exists an \(L^{1}\) function \(m\) for which \(| f( t,u)| \leq m( t) \), \(t\in[ 0,1] \), \(u\in [ -r,r] \). The authors look for both classical \( W^{2,1}(0,1) \) solutions and non-classical \(W_{loc}^{2,1}(0,1)\) solutions under some further assumptions concerning the growth of \(f\) and its potential. They approach is as follows. First, they introduce a perturbed problem possessing a variational structure and which is considered in \( W_{0}^{1,r}(0,1)\) with \(1<r\leq 2\) and investigated by a variational method applied to a regularized action functional. Depending on the growth of the potential of the nonlinearity of the perturbed problem at the origin and at the infinity they obtain existence and multiplicity results for small \(\lambda \) (when the growth near the origin is superquadratic), for large \(\lambda \) (when the growth at infinity is superlinear) and for any \(\lambda \) (when the growth is superquadratic near the origin and superlinear at infinity). To get these results a mountain pass geometry combined with the method of upper and lower solutions is used. Next the authors undertake the task of obtaining the solution to the original problem by investigating the convergence of a regularized scheme which again depends on the growth of the potential of the nonlinearity near the origin and at infinity. Various variational techniques are employed in the proofs, for example mountain pass geometry, minimization. The existence of at least two positive solutions is finally obtained, one of which is classical. The model examples with three solutions are given at the end of the paper. The authors mention that their results, with suitable modification, could be used in investigations connected with the \(\phi -\)Laplacian type equations.