Existence of solutions for higher order BVP with parameters via critical point theory (Q2340243)

The authors consider the boundary value problem depending on real parameters, \[ (-1)^k x^{(2k)}+\sum\limits_{j=1}^k \lambda_j x^{(2k-2j)} = (-1)^{i-1} f(t,x^{(2i-2)}),\atop{x^{(2j)}(0)=x^{(2j)}(1)=0,\quad j=0,\ldots, k-1,}\eqno{(1)} \] where \(f : [0, 1]\to \mathbb{R}\) is a continuous function, \(i\) is a fixed integer \(1\leq i \leq k\). Let \[ \Lambda(x)= \sum\limits_{j=1}^k (-1)^{k-j}\lambda_j (x^2\pi^2)^{k-j}, \quad\Delta_+=\bigcap_{n\in N}\{\lambda\in R^k \, | \,\Lambda(n)\geq 0\}\,. \eqno{(2)} \] The main result is formulated for the nonresonant case. {Theorem 4.} Assume that \((\lambda_1,\ldots, \lambda_k)\in \Delta_+\) and let \(f : [0,1]\times \mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}\) be a continuous function that satisfies the following conditions (i) \(\displaystyle\limsup_{u\to 0}\frac{f(t,u)}{u} <\frac{\pi^{2k}+\Lambda(1)}{\pi^{2i-2}}\), \(\displaystyle\liminf_{u\to +\infty}\frac{f(t,u)}{u} >\frac{\pi^{2k}+\Lambda(1)}{\pi^{2i-2}},\) (ii) there exist \(m\in[0,1/2)\) and \(N>0\) such that for \(|w|\geq N\), we have \[ \int_0^w f(t,u)\, du\leq m w f(t,w) \] for each \(t\in [0,1]\). Then problem (1) possesses at least one nonzero solution. To prove this result, the authors use the Mountain Pass Lemma.