Equations of gas combustion: \(S\)-shaped bifurcation and mushrooms (Q678040)

Of concern is the modified Gel'fand problem \[ -\Delta u=\lambda \exp\Bigl({{\alpha u}\over{\alpha+ u}}\Bigr) \qquad \text{in } \Omega, \qquad u|_{\partial\Omega}\equiv 0,\tag{1} \] where \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^n\) is a bounded domain with smooth boundary and \(\lambda>0\) is the bifurcation parameter. The limit case \(\alpha=\infty\) corresponds to the Gel'fand nonlinearity \(\lambda \exp(u)\). The final goal is a complete description of the set \(\mathcal S\) of all solution pairs \((\lambda, u)\) of (1), a goal which requires to investigate the existence of compact components of \(\mathcal S\), so-called mushrooms. The latter is already a difficult issue; the idea is to begin with an S-shaped bifurcation curve and then to obtain a continuum separating from this curve by symmetry breaking due to domain deformation. The authors do not succeed in actually establishing mushrooms, but they make some valuable contributions in this direction, mostly for the two-dimensional case. S-shapedness follows in the context of (1) from a result of \textit{H. Wiebers} [Math. Ann. 270, 555-570 (1985; Zbl 0544.35015)]. Specific information about the second eigenfunction is obtained, if \(n=2\) and \(\Omega\) is symmetric with respect to both axes and convex with respect to one axis. Moreover, Morse indices are computed for special solutions of the Gelfand problem, the existence of connecting continua from the trivial solution to certain solutions of the form \((0,v)\) (\(v\not\equiv 0\)) is obtained and the structure of these continua is studied.