Sign-preserving property for some fourth-order elliptic operators in one dimension or in radial symmetry (Q891347)

This paper is concerned with the sign-preserving property for solutions of fourth order elliptic operators. The first result deals with 1D solutions. \noindent{ Theorem 1.} Let \[ {\mathcal L}_iw:=a_i(x)\frac{d^2w}{dx^2}+b_i(x)\frac{dw}{dx}+c_i(x)w,\quad i=1,2, \] be two differential operators where \(a_i,b_i,c_i\) are bounded functions in \([-1,1]\) satisfying \[ \min\{a_1(x),a_2(x)\}\geq \eta\geq 0,\quad \max\{c_1(x),c_2(x)\}\leq 0 \] for all \(x\in [-1,1]\) and for some \(\eta\geq 0\). If \(u\in C^4(-1,1)\cap C^2[-1,1]\) and \(\gamma\in C^2(-1,1)\cap C[-1,1]\) satisfy \[ {\mathcal L_1}u=\gamma,\quad {\mathcal L}_2\gamma\leq 0\quad\text{ in }(-1,1) \] and \(u(\pm 1)=u'(\pm 1)=0\), then either \(u\equiv 0\) or \(u\leq 0\) in \((-1,1)\). Next, the above result is extended to radially symmetric functions in higher dimensions as follows. \noindent{ Theorem 2.} Let \[ {\mathcal L}_iw:=\sum_{j,k=1}^d a_i^{jk}(x)\partial_{jk}w+\sum_{j=1}^d b_i^j(x)\partial_jw+c_i(x)w,\quad i=1,2, d\geq 1, \] be two differential operators where \(\{a_i^{jk}\}\) are symmetric and uniformly elliptic and \(c_i\leq 0\) in the unit ball \(B_1\) of \({\mathbb R}^d\). If \(u\in C^4(B_1)\cap C^2(\overline B_1)\) and \(\gamma\in C^2(B_1)\cap C(\overline B_1)\) satisfy \[ {\mathcal L_1}u=\gamma,\quad {\mathcal L}_2\gamma\leq 0\quad\text{ in } B_1 \] and \(u=\partial_n u=0\) on \(\partial B_1\), then either \(u\equiv 0\) or \(u\leq 0\) in \(B_1\). An application to MEMS problems is also presented.