Gradient systems with sublinear term near the origin and asymptotically linear term near infinity (Q2252611)

The aim of the authors is to obtain the existence of nontrivial solutions for a sublinear gradient system with a nontrivial critical group at infinity. The solutions of gradient systems can be found as critical points of a suitable functional \(\Phi\). The authors verify the compactness of the functional \(\Phi\) and compute the critical groups of \(\Phi\) at both zero and infinity. Without loss of generality, it is assumed that \(\Phi\) has finitely many weak solutions so that the trivial solution \(z = 0\) is an isolated critical point of \(\Phi\). At first, the authors compute the critical groups \(C_q(\Phi, 0)\). The idea originated from an unpublished preprint by \textit{J. Q. Liu} and \textit{S. P. Wu} [``A note on a class of sublinear elliptic equation'', Research Report 84, Peking University (1997)] where a single elliptic equation was studied.