Existence of selfsimilar shrinking curves for anisotropic curvature flow equations (Q1908905)

The existence of \(2\pi\)-periodic solutions of the differential equation \[ u_{xx}+ u+ {\textstyle {a(x)} \over u} =0 \] is investigated for the case in which \(a(x)\) is also \(2\pi\)-periodic. The main result establishes that, if \(a\) is a positive, continuous, \(2\pi\)-periodic function, then there exists a \(2\pi\)-periodic solution which satisfies \(u>0\).