Morse index of layered solutions to the heterogeneous Allen-Cahn equation (Q2373815)

Consider the Allen-Cahn BVP on the unit ball \[ -\varepsilon^2\Delta u=u(u-a(| x| ))(1-u) \,\,\, if \,\,\,| x| <1, \quad \partial_{\nu}u=0 \,\,\,if \,\,\,| x| =1, \eqno{(1)} \] where \(a(r)\) is a \(\mathcal{C}^1\) function such that \(0<a(r)<1\). It is known that the BVP (1) has many radial solutions. One of them is of the form \(u_{\varepsilon}(x)=\psi_{\varepsilon}(| x| )+\omega_{\varepsilon}(| x| )\), where \(\psi_{\varepsilon}(r)\) describes a single transition from \(u=0\) to \(u=1\) on a interval of length \(O(\varepsilon\ln\varepsilon)\) and \(\omega_{\varepsilon}\) is a higher order term. In the first part of the paper, the authors prove that the first eigenvalue of the linearization of \((1)\) around the solution \(u_{\varepsilon}\) is of the form \( \lambda_1^{\varepsilon}=\mu_0\varepsilon+o(\varepsilon), \) where \(\mu_0\in \mathbb{R}\) is computed explicitly. The second part of the paper concerns the Morse index \(m^{\varepsilon}\) of the solution \(u_{\varepsilon}\). The authors prove an asymptotic estimate \( \lim_{\varepsilon\to 0}\frac{m^{\varepsilon}}{\varepsilon^{-(N-1)/2}}=\mu^*, \) where \(\mu^*>0\) is computed explicitly in terms of parameters determined by the equation.