Localized solutions of sublinear elliptic equations: Loitering at the hilltop (Q1266973)

The paper establishes the existence of infinitely many localized twice-differentiable radial solutions to the equation \[ \Delta v+f(v)=0,\quad v\in \mathbb{R}^N, \] where \(f\) is linearly bounded above. The precise assumptions are that \(f\) is an odd locally Lipschitz continuous function with \(-\infty<-\sigma^2\equiv \lim_{s\to 0} f(s)/s\leq 0\) and in the case \(\sigma=0\) it is required that \(f(s)<0\) for small positive \(s\). Furthermore it is assumed that the primitive \(F(s)\equiv\int_0^s f(s') ds'\) has a positive zero \(\gamma\) with \(f(\gamma)>0\) and \(F(s)<0\) for all \(s\) in the interval \((0,\gamma)\). Under these hypotheses it is shown that for each nonnegative integer \(n\) there is a \(C^2\) real-valued solution \(v(x)\), spherically symmetric with respect to the origin, such that \(v(x)\to 0\) as \(| x|\to\infty\), and such that \(v(x)\) vanishes on exactly \(n\) spherical hypersurfaces. The considered problem is related to the semilinear wave equation \(u_{tt}-\Delta u=g(t)\), where solutions are complex-valued functions on spacetime \(\mathbb{R}^{N+1}\), with spatial dimension \(N\geq 2\), and where the nonlinearity \(g:C\to C\) has the property \(g(se^{i\psi})=g(s)e^{i\psi}\) for all real \(s\) and \(\psi\). The profile \(v(x)\) of the standing-wave solutions of the type \(u(x,t)=e^{i\omega t}v(x)\) of this wave equation satisfies the considered nonlinear elliptic equation with \(f(z)\equiv g(z)+\omega^2 z\).