Nodal solutions for problems with mean curvature operator in Minkowski space with nonlinearity jumping only at the origin (Q2179437)

Summary: In this paper, we establish a unilateral global bifurcation result for half-linear perturbation problems with mean curvature operator in Minkowski space. As applications of the abovementioned result, we shall prove the existence of nodal solutions for the following problem \[ \begin{cases} - \operatorname{div} (\nabla v/\sqrt{ 1-|\nabla v|^2}) = \alpha (|x|) v^+ + \beta (|x|) v^- + \lambda a (|x|) f (v), \text{ in } B_R (0), \\ v (x) = 0, \text{ on } \partial B_R (0), \end{cases} \] where \(\lambda \neq 0\) is a parameter, \(R\) is a positive constant, and \(B_R( 0)=\{ x \in \mathbb{R}^N : | x| < R\}\) is the standard open ball in the Euclidean space \(\mathbb{R}^N\) (\( N \geq 1\)) which is centered at the origin and has radius \(R\). \(a(|x|) \in C[0, R]\) is positive, \( v^+ = \max{v, 0}\), \(v^- = -\min{(v, 0}, \alpha (|x|), \beta (|x|) \in C[0, R]\), \(f\in C( \mathbb{R}, \mathbb{R})\), \(sf(s) > 0\) for \(s \neq 0\), and \(f_0 \in [0, \infty ]\), where \(f_0 = \lim_{|s| \longrightarrow 0} f(s)/s\). We use unilateral global bifurcation techniques and the approximation of connected components to prove our main results.