Some remarks concerning exact solution numbers for a class of nonlinear boundary value problems (Q1323901)

The paper deals with problems of the type (1) \(-u''= f(x,u)\), \(u'(0)= \tau\sigma_ 1\), \(u'(\pi)= \tau\sigma_ 2\), where \(f\) and \(f_ u\) belong to \(C([0,\pi]\times \mathbb{R};\mathbb{R})\), \(f_ u(x,u)\to \alpha\) as \(u\to -\infty\) and \(f_ u(x,u)\to \beta\) as \(u\to \infty\) uniformly in \(x\), and where \(\sigma_ 1,\sigma_ 2\in \mathbb{R}\), \(\alpha,\beta,\tau\in (0,\infty)\). The authors study the piecewise linear model equations \(- u''= \alpha u^ -+ \beta u^ +\) with nonhomogeneous Neumann conditions and approximate solutions of these problems, for large \(\tau\), by solutions of (1). They define shooting maps \(\sigma_{\alpha\beta}\) by means of that they prove the existence of solutions, the uniqueness or the existence of exactly three solutions of (1) in dependence to \(\alpha\), \(\beta\), \(\tau\). Moreover, they present additional qualitative information on these solutions, e.g. the quantity and approximate locations of their zeros, growth rates or estimates of the norms.