Radial symmetric stationary solutions for a MEMS type reaction-diffusion equation with spatially dependent nonlinearity (Q2024614)

This paper is devoted to reaction-diffusion equations of the form \[ u_t=\Delta u-|x|^qu^{-p},\ t>0,\ x\in\mathbb{R}^n, \] where \(p, n\in \mathbb{N}\), \(n\geq 3\), and \(q\in \mathbb{R}\). In fact, studing the existence of radial symmetric stationary (RSS) solutions, the authors reduce this equation to the following \[ u''+\frac{n-1}{r}u'-r^qu^{-p}=0,\tag{1} \] where \(r=|x|>0\). One of the main results guarantees the existence of a family of negative solutions to (1), with \(n\geq3\), \(p\in 2\mathbb{N}\), \(q\in \mathbb{R}\), defined on a finite interval \((r_-,r_+), r_->0\). Each solution \(u(r)\) has the properties \[ \lim_{r\to r_+-0}u(r)=0,\ \lim_{r\to r_-+0}u(r)=0,\ \lim_{r\to r_+-0}u'(r)=\infty,\ \lim_{r\to r_-+0}u'(r)=-\infty, \] and there is \(r_*\in(r_-,r_+)\) such that \(u'(r)<0\) for \(r\in(r_-,r_*)\), \(u'(r_*)=0\) and \(u'(r)>0\) for \(r\in(r_*,r_+.)\) The asymptotic behavior of \(u(r)\) and \(u'(r)\) at the ends of the interval is also given. Other two results treating the case \(p, n\in \mathbb{N}\), \(n\geq 3\), \(q\geq-2\) guarantee positive RSS solutions to (1) defined for \(r\in(0,\infty)\). Each solution \(u(r)\) is singular at \(r=0\) and \[ \lim_{r\to0}u(r)=+\infty, \lim_{r\to+\infty}u(r)=+\infty. \] It is shown that asymptotic behavior of \(u(r)\) for \(r\to+\infty\) and \(r\to0\) is different when \(q>-2\) and \(q=-2\). The Poincaré compactification and basic theory of dynamical systems are used.