Singular reaction diffusion equations where a parameter influences the reaction term and the boundary conditions (Q2236473)

The authors prove the existence of positive solutions of the steady state reaction diffusion equation: \[ \begin{cases} -u^{\prime \prime}=\lambda h(t) f(u) \text { in }(0,1), \\ -d u^{\prime}(0)+\mu(\lambda) u(0)=0, \\ u^{\prime}(1)+\mu(\lambda) u(1)=0, \end{cases} \] where \(\lambda>0\) is a parameter, \(d \geq 0\) is a constant, \(f \in C^{2}([0, \infty), \mathbb{R})\) is an increasing function which is sublinear at infinity \(\left(\lim _{s \rightarrow \infty} f(s) / s=0\right)\), \(h \in C^{1}((0,1],(0, \infty))\) is a nonincreasing function with \(h_{1}:=h(1)>0\) and there exist constants \(d_{0}>0, \alpha \in[0,1)\) such that \(h(t) \leq d_{0} / t^{\alpha}\) for all \(t \in(0,1]\), and \(\mu \in C([0, \infty),[0, \infty))\) is an increasing function such that \(\mu(0) \geq 0 .\) Three cases are considered for \(f\), namely, \(f(0)=0, f(0)>0\) and \(f(0)<0\). The existence and multiplicity results are deduced via the method of lower and upper solutions, the construction of suitable Green's functions and spectral theory. Moreover the authors obtain uniqueness results for \(\lambda \approx 0\) and \(\lambda \gg 1\). Some examples are given at the end of the paper.