Asymptotically linear elliptic problems at resonance (Q678125)

The semilinear elliptic boundary value problem \[ -\Delta u= \lambda_k u+g(u) \text{ in }D, \quad u=0 \text{ on } \partial D \] is studied. Here \(D\) denotes a smooth bounded domain in \(\mathbb{R}^N\), \(\lambda_k\) is the \(k\)-th eigenvalue of \(-\Delta\) with Dirichlet boundary conditions and \(g\) is \(C^1\) and bounded, \(g(0)=0\) and \(\lim_{t\to\infty} g'(t)=0\). The main result of the paper is that if \(\lambda_k +g'(0)\) is not an eigenvalue and if there are at least two eigenvalues (counted with multiplicity) in the interval \((\lambda_k, \lambda_k+ g'(0))\), then there is a nontrivial solution to this problem. Problems of this type are said to be resonant at infinity. The result is proved by using works on generalized Morse theory by Benci and Benci-Fortunato. The proof involves a penalized functional and becomes more difficult if \(g'(0) <0\), since in this case the functional is unbounded both from below and from above and relative homology should be used in order to compute Morse indices.