Global bifurcation from the eigenvalues of the \(p\)-Laplacian (Q1176608)

The authors consider the boundary value problem \(-\Delta_ p u= \lambda| u|^{p-2} u+ f(x,u,\lambda)\) in \(\Omega\), \(u=0\) on \(\partial\Omega\), where \(\Omega\) is a bounded domain in \(\mathbb R^ N\), \(\Delta_ p\) is the \(p\)-Laplacian, \(\lambda\) is a bifurcation parameter, \(f(x,u,\lambda)= o\bigl(| u|^{p-1}\bigr)\) for \(u\to 0\) and the growth of \(f\) in \(u\) is subcritical. They prove that the first eigenvalue \(\lambda_ 1(p)\) of the ``linearized'' problem (i.e. the problem with \(f\equiv 0\)) is a bifurcation point and the corresponding bifurcation branch is global in the sense of Rabinowitz. The proof is based on the computation of the corresponding Leray-Schauder degree by using suitable homotopic deformation from a general \(p>1\) to \(p=2\). If \(\Omega\) is a ball in \(\mathbb R^ N\), the global bifurcation result mentioned above is proved for any eigenvalue relative to the class of radially symmetric functions. Applications to existence of nontrivial solutions of boundary value problems involving the \(p\)-Laplacian are given.