On one-dimensional superlinear indefinite problems involving the \(\phi \)-Laplacian (Q1615341)

The authors establish new results on the existence of positive solutions of the problem \[ \begin{aligned} -\phi(u')'=m(x) f(u) \text{ in } \Omega=(a,b) \subset \mathbb{R},\\ u=0 \quad \text{ in } \partial \Omega , \end{aligned} \] where \(m\in L^1(\Omega)\) may change sign with a small negative part, \(\phi: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) is an odd increasing homeomorphism and \( f: [0, \infty) \rightarrow [0, \infty)\) is a continuous function which is, roughly speaking, superlinear with respect to \(\phi\). The main tool is to use the Guo-Krasnoselskii fixed point theorem combined with some estimates derived by the authors in [J. Math. Anal. Appl. 461, No. 1, 24--37 (2018; Zbl 1456.34021)], where the sublinear case was studied for nonnegative functions \(m\).