Exact multiplicity and stability of solutions of a 1-dimensional, \(p\)-Laplacian problem with positive convex nonlinearity (Q2424013)

The parametric boundary-value problem \[ -(|u'|^{p-1}\mathrm{sg}u')'=\lambda f(u),\quad u(\pm1)=0,\tag{1} \] is studied. Here \(p>1\), \(p\neq2\), \(\lambda \) is a positive parameter and \(f:\mathbb R\rightarrow(0,+\infty)\) is \(C^2\), grows at infinity at least as \(u^q\) (\(q>p\)), with \(f'\) and \(f''\) strictly positive. The main result concerns the structure of the set of solutions \((\lambda,u)\) of (1) in \((0,+\infty)\times C^1_0[-1,1]\). The author proves that these solutions form a parametrised curve \[ s\mapsto(\lambda(s),\,u(s)),\quad s\in(0,+\infty), \] which, in addition to regularity properties, may be described by \((a)\) when \(s\to0^+\), \((\lambda(s),\,u(s))\) approaches \((0,0)\), \((b)\) when \(s\to+\infty\), \((\lambda(s),\,\|u(s)\|)\) approaches \((0,+\infty)\), \((c)\) the map \(s\mapsto\lambda(s)\) increases stricly from \(0\) up to a maximum \(\lambda^*=\lambda(s^*)\) and then decreases strictly to \(0\). As a consequence, (1) has no solution if \(\lambda>\lambda^*\), has exactly one solution if \(\lambda=\lambda^*\) and has exctly two solutions if \(0<\lambda<\lambda^*\). In addition, it is shown that in the latter case the solutions are ordered (\(u^-(\lambda)<u^+(\lambda)\)). This result is motivated by an article of \textit{Y. An} et al. [J. Differ. Equations 260, No. 3, 2091--2118 (2016; Zbl 1329.35131)] where a radial problem in dimension \(N\ge4\) is studied. For the proof, (1) is written as an operator equation \(u=S(\lambda f(u)) \) in \(C[-1,1]\), where \(S\) is the inverse of the one-dimensional \(p\)-Laplacian with zero boundary condition. In fact, by symmetry, only \(C[0,1]\) is needed. The main tools are differentiability properties of \(S\) and the implicit function theorem. Although the outline is similar to the procedure in the article of An et al. [loc. cit.], there are novelties and some simplifications. In the last section, the parabolic problem associated to (1) is studied. Linearization arguments show that \(u^-(\lambda)\) is locally exponentially stable. On the other hand, solutions with initial values above \(u^+(\lambda)\) become arbitrarily large.