Principal eigenvalues of a second-order difference operator with sign-changing weight and its applications (Q1727004)

Summary: Let \(T > 2\) be an integer and \(\mathbb{T} = \{1,2, \ldots, T \}\). We show the existence of the principal eigenvalues of linear periodic eigenvalue problem \(- \Delta^2 u(j - 1) + q(j) u(j) = \lambda g(j) u(j), j \in \mathbb{T}\), \(u(0) = u(T), u(1) = u(T + 1)\), and we determine the sign of the corresponding eigenfunctions, where \(\lambda\) is a parameter, \(q(j) \geq 0\) and \(q(j) \not\equiv 0\) in \(\mathbb{T}\), and the weight function \(g\) changes its sign in \(\mathbb{T}\). As an application of our spectrum results, we use the global bifurcation theory to study the existence of positive solutions for the corresponding nonlinear problem.