Strong positivity in \(C(\bar\Omega)\) for elliptic systems (Q803394)

The linear elliptic system \(Lu=Hu+f\) in \(\Omega\), \(u=\phi\) on \(\partial \Omega\), is studied, where \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb{R}}^ n\) is bounded; L is a diagonal matrix of uniformly elliptic operators and H is a coupling matrix of functions. Conditions that are sufficient to have a strongly positive solution operator \((L-H)^{-1}\) are: 1) H is essentially positive (nonnegative off-diagonal elements); 2) H is fully coupled (irreducibility of \((L-H)^{-1})\); and 3) existence of a positive supersolution. As in the scalar case one finds for the related eigenvalue problem a unique first eigenfunction, the Barta-inequality and an anti- maximum principle. For some systems that do not satisfy 1) a partial result is shown using pointwise estimates for Green functions.