Increasing variational solutions for a nonlinear \(p\)-Laplace equation without growth conditions (Q1953874)

The purpose of the paper is to find radially increasing solutions to a class of quasilinear equations involving the \(p\)-Laplace operator. In the first part, the author deals with the nonlinear eigenvalue problem for the \(p\)-Laplace operator \[ \begin{cases} -\Delta _p u + | u | ^{p-2} u = \lambda a(| x | ) f(u)& \mathrm{ in }\,\, B,\\ u>0 & \mathrm{ in }\,\, B,\\ \frac{\partial u }{\partial \nu }=0 & \mathrm{ on }\,\, \partial B, \end{cases} \eqno{(1)} \] where \(B=\{ x \in {\mathbb R}^N ; | x | <1\}\) and \(N\geq 3\). Here the author look for \(\lambda \in {\mathbb R}\) and a positive \(u \in W^{1,p}(B) \) such that (1) is solved in the weak sense. In the second part, the author looks for solutions of (1) for fixed \(\lambda \). For the nonlinear eigenvalue problem, the assumptions are as follows. (A) \(a\in L^1(B) \) is non-constant radially increasing, satisfying \(a(r)>0\) for almost every \(r\in [0,1]\). (F) \(f\in C^1 ([0,\infty ))\) is a positive function that satisfies \(f(0)=0\); moreover \(t\mapsto f(t)/t^{p-1}\) is strictly increasing on \((0,\infty )\). Then the following theorem holds. {Theorem 1}. The nonlinear eigenvalue problem (1) has at least one radially symmetric solution, and this solution is a monotone increasing function. For fixed \(\lambda =1\), besides (A), the following assumptions are needed. (F') \(f\in C^1([0,\infty )),f(t)= o(t^{p-1})\) as \(t \to 0\); \(f'(t)t -(p-1)f(t)>0\) for all \(t>0\); there exists \(\gamma >p\) such that \(f(t)t\geq \gamma F(t)\) for all \(t>0\) where \(F(t)= \int _0^t f(s)ds\). (F'') \(t\mapsto f(t)/t^{p-1} \) is strictly increasing on \((0,\infty )\) Then the author obtains the following theorem. {Theorem 2}. Under the assumptions (A), (F') and (F''), there exists a positive, radially symmetric, and increasing solution to the problem (1) with \(\lambda =1\).