Existence and bifurcation of positive solutions of a semilinear elliptic problem on \(\mathbb{R}^ N\) (Q1363126)

Bifurcation problems arise frequently in Biology or Chemistry, e.g., in reaction-diffusion processes, combustion theory, genetics, etc. The author studies the problem (P\(_\lambda\)): Find \(0\leq u\leq 1\) such that \(-\Delta u(x)=\lambda g(x)f(u(x))\), if \(x\in\mathbb{R}^N, N\geq 3\), where \(\lambda >0\) and \(f:[0,1]\rightarrow\mathbb{R}\) is a Lipschitz function which is differentiable at 0 and satisfies \(f(0)=f(1)=0, f'(0)>0\), \(f(t)>0\) for \(t\in (0,1)\). The function \(g\) is assumed to satisfy natural growth conditions. First the existence of some \(\lambda_\star\in [0,+\infty )\) is shown, such that for every \(\lambda >\lambda_\star\) problem (P\(_\lambda\)) admits at least one weak solution \(u_\lambda\in (0,1)\). Furthermore, if \(g\) is bounded then \(u_\lambda (x)\) converges to 0 as \(|x|\rightarrow +\infty\), for every \(\lambda >\lambda_\star\). The proof is based on a monotone method which enables the author to show that solutions of coorresponding problems on balls converge, as the radius tends to \(+\infty\), to a solution of (P\(_\lambda\)). The next part of the paper deals with the existence of a global branch of solutions of (P\(_\lambda\)). By using a topological method the author proves the existence of a connected unbounded branch of positive solutions in \(\mathbb{R}\times L^{2N/(N-2)}(\mathbb{R}^N\)). Taking into account the celebrated symmetry results of Gidas-Ni-Nirenberg the methods applied in this paper provide radial solutions in the case when \(g\) has radial dependence.