Bounded solutions for a forced bounded oscillator without friction (Q2438112)

Under the validity of a Landesman-Lazer type condition, the authors prove the existence of solutions bounded on the real line, together with their first derivatives, for some second order nonlinear differential equation of the form \[ \ddot{u}+g(u)=p(t), \] where the reaction term \(g\) is bounded. The proof is variational and relies on a dual version of the Nehari method for the existence of oscillating solutions to superlinear equations. The method is interesting and complicated but roughly consists of two steps. Firstly, they consider the positive (or negative) solutions of the equation with the boundary conditions \(u(a)=0=u(b)\). Then they juxtapose positive and negative minimizers (of the functionals corresponding to the above two-point boundary value problems) with alternate signs to obtain oscillating solutions. Incidentally, assuming \(p\) to be \(T\)-periodic, a simple variation of the argument allows to obtain the existence of infinitely many subharmonic solutions (also obtained by \textit{A. Fonda} and \textit{A. C. Lazer} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 115, No. 1, 183--190 (1992; Zbl 0752.34027)]) with sharp nodal characterization.