Existence of discontinuous solutions for doubly degenerate elliptic equations on \(\mathbb{R}^ n\) (Q1261752)

The author demonstrates the existence of infinitely many radially symmetric, continuous solutions of the problem \[ \text{div} ((k(U)+\varepsilon)| DU |^{M-1}DU)=f(| x |,U)+\varepsilon U \text{ in } \mathbb{R}^ N,\;N>1, \tag{1.1\(_ \varepsilon\)} \] \[ U(0)>0,U(x) \geq 0 \text{ on } \mathbb{R}^ N,U(x) \to 0 \text{ as } | x | \to+\infty, \tag{1.2} \] where \(D\) stands for the gradient operator, under the following hypotheses: I. \(\varepsilon>0\) is a small parameter and \(M>N-1(>0)\) is a given constant. II. \(k(t)\) is a nonnegative continuous function defined on \([0,+\infty)\). III. \(s^{(N-1)(M+1)/M}f(s,t)\) is a nonnegative continuous function defined on \([0,+\infty) \times [0,+\infty)\) such that it is increasing in \(s\) for each fixed \(t>0\), and \(f(s,0) \equiv 0\) for all \(s>0\). The aim of studying the problem involving a small parameter \(\varepsilon\) is to determine solutions for the limiting case \(\varepsilon=0\), in which discontinuities may appear when the function \(k(t)\) has intervals of degeneracy, and to ascertain its properties when solutions for the case \(\varepsilon>0\) are found. By an interval of degeneracy is meant a closed interval on which \(k(t)=0\). It must be pointed out that the equation \((1.1)_ 0\) is of doubly degenerate elliptic type when \(k(t)\) has zeros.