Branches of positive solutions of a superlinear indefinite problem driven by the one-dimensional curvature operator (Q2077055)

This paper is concerned with the set of positive regular solutions of the quasilinear Neumann problem \[ \begin{cases} -\left(\frac{u'}{\sqrt{1+|u'|^2}}\right)'=\lambda a(x)f(u), \quad 0<x<1,\\ u'(0)=u'(1)=0, \end{cases}\tag{1} \] where \(\lambda\in\mathbb{R}\) is a parameter and the functions \(a\) and \(f\) satisfy: \((a_1)\) \(a\in L^{\infty}(0,1)\), \(\int_0^1a(x)dx<0\), and there is \(z\in(0,1)\) such that \(a(x)>0\) almost everywhere in \((0,z)\) and \(a(x)<0\) almost everywhere in \((z,1)\). \((f_1)\) \(f\in C^0[0,+\infty)\), \(f(s)>0\) if \(s>0\), and, for some constant \(p>1\), \(\lim\limits_{s\to 0^+}\frac{f(s)}{s^p}=1.\) The main results of this paper are the following two theorems. Theorem 1. Assume that \((g_1)\) \(g:[0,1]\times[0,+\infty)\times \mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}\) satisfy the Carathéodory conditions and, for every compact subset \(K\) of \(\mathbb{R}\), \(\lim\limits_{s\to0^+} \frac{g(x,s,\xi)}{s}=0\), uniformly for almost every \(x\in [0, 1]\) and every \(\xi\in K\).\\ Then, any positive solution \(u\in W^{2,1}(0,1)\) of \[ \begin{cases} -u''=g(x,u,u'), \quad 0<x<1,\\ u'(0)=u'(1)=0 \end{cases} \] is strictly positive. Theorem 2. Assume \((a_1)\) and \((f_1)\). Then, there exists an unbounded closed connected subset \(\mathcal{C}^+\) of \(\mathcal{S}^+\) for which the following properties hold: \((i)\) there is \(\lambda^*>0\) such that \([\lambda^*, \infty)\subset proj_{\mathbb{R}}(\mathcal{C}^+)\); \((ii)\) there are functions \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) such that, for every \((\lambda,u_\lambda)\in\mathcal{C}^+\), one has that: \(u_\lambda(x_\lambda)<\lambda^{\frac{1}{1-p}}\alpha(x_\lambda)\) for some \(x_\lambda\in[0,z)\), \(u_\lambda(y_\lambda)>\lambda^{\frac{1}{1-p}}\beta(y_\lambda)\) for some \(y_\lambda\in[0,1]\); \((iii)\) there is \(C > 0\) such that, for every \((\lambda,u_\lambda)\in\mathcal{C}^+\), \[ \|u'_\lambda\|_{L^{\infty}(0,1)}<C\lambda^{\frac{1}{1-p}}. \] Moreover, for every \(\lambda\in[\lambda_*,\infty)\), there exists at least one Lyapunov unstable solution \(u\in\mathcal{S}^+\) of problem (1) satisfying the conditions expressed by properties \((ii)\) and \((iii)\). Compared with many other papers that study the bifurcation branches based on the Implicit Function Theorem, this paper obtains the unbounded connected branch by exploiting an alternative method based on the construction of some non-ordered sub and supersolutions and the Leray-Schauder degree, which is very new.