Bifurcation phenomena for nonlinear superdiffusive Neumann equations of logistic type (Q2436006)

This paper deals with the existence and multiplicity of positive solutions for the following nonlinear Neumann problem: \[ \begin{cases} -\Delta_p u+\beta (z)|u(z)|^{p-2}u(z)=\lambda u(z)^{q-1}-f(z,u(z)) & \text{in} \;\Omega,\\ \frac{\partial u}{\partial \nu}=0 & \text{on}\;\partial \Omega, \end{cases}\tag{problem1} \] where \(\Delta_p u=\operatorname{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)\) is the \(p\)-Laplacian operator, \(\Omega \subset {\mathbb{R}^N}\) is a bounded domain with a \(C^2\)-boundary \(\partial \Omega\), \(1<q <p <p^\ast\), \(\beta \in L^\infty_+(\Omega)\), \(\beta\neq 0\), \(\lambda>0\), \(\nu\) is the outer unit normal to \(\partial \Omega\) and \(p^\ast\) is the Sobolev critical exponent defined by \(p^\ast=pN/(N-p)\) if \(1<p<N\); \(p^\ast=+\infty\), if \(p\geq N\). The hypotheses on the nonlinear perturbation \(f\) are the following: \(H)\) \(f:\Omega\times \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) is a Carathéodory function such that \(f(z,0)=0\) a.e. in \(\Omega\) and {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize} \item[i)] there exist \(a \in L^\infty_+(\Omega)\), \(c > 0\), \(p < r < p^\ast\) such that \(| f (z, x)| \leq a(z) + c|x|^{r-1}\), for a.a. \(z\in \Omega\) and all \(x \in \mathbb{R}\); \item [ii)] for a.a. \(z\in \Omega\) and all \(x\geq0\), \(f(z,x)\geq0\) and there exist \(M\), \(\gamma >0\) and \(\theta >q\) such that \(f(z,x)\geq \gamma x^{\theta-1}\), for a.a. \(z\in \Omega\) and all \(x\geq M\); \item [iii)] \(\displaystyle \lim_{x\to 0^+}\frac{f(z,x)}{x^{p-1}}=0 \) uniformly, for a.a. \(z\in \Omega\); \item [iv)] for every \(r>0\) and every bounded interval \(I \subset(0, \infty)\), there exists \(\eta=\eta(r,I)>0\) such that, for a.a. \(z\in \Omega\), \(x \to \lambda x^{q-1}-f(z,x) + \eta x^{\theta-1}\) is nondecreasing on \([0, r]\), for all \(\lambda\in I\). \end{itemize}} By using minimax methods from critical point theory together with suitable truncation techniques, the authors show that the equation exhibits a bifurcation phenomenon, that is under hypotheses \(H\), there exists \(\lambda^\ast >0\) such {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize} \item[(a)] for \(\lambda \in (0, \lambda^\ast)\) ({problem1}) has no positive solutions; \item [(b)] for \(\lambda = \lambda^\ast\) ({problem1}) has at least one positive solution; \item [(c)] for \(\lambda > \lambda^\ast\) ({problem1}) has at least two positive solutions. \end{itemize}}