Shooting with degree theory: analysis of some weighted poly-harmonic systems (Q2451923)

The existence of positive entire solutions to a general system \[ (-\Delta)^{k_i}u_i=f_i(\left|x\right|,u_1,u_2,\dots,u_L) \quad \text{in} \quad x\in\mathbb{R}^n\setminus\{0\}, \quad \text{for} \quad i=1,2,\dots,L \] is studied in the paper. Here \(k_i\geq 1\) are integers, the functions \(f_i\), \(i=1,2,\dots,L\) are non-negative and continuous on the set \((0,+\infty)\times\mathbb{R}_+^L\), \(\mathbb{R}_+:=[0,+\infty)\), positive and locally Lipschitz continuous with respect to the vector \(u:=(u_1,u_2,\dots,u_L)\) in the interior of \(\mathbb{R}_+\times\mathbb{R}_+^L\). In addition, the following non-degeneracy conditions are considered: (i) for each non-zero \(v\in\partial \mathbb{R}_+^L\) there are constants \(\lambda=\lambda(v)>0\), \(\sigma=\sigma(v)>-2\) and \(\delta=\delta(v)>0\) s.t. \(\lambda(v)\left|x\right|^\sigma\leq\sum_{j\in I^0_v}f_j(|x|,w)\) for all \(x\in\mathbb{R}^n\setminus\{0\}\) and \(w\in\mathbb{R}_+^L\) s.t. \(|v-w|<\delta\); here \(I^0_v\) is the set of indices \(j\) for which \(v_j=0\); (ii) \(\lim_{|x|\rightarrow\infty}F(|x|,v)=0\) implies that \(v\in\partial \mathbb{R}_+^L\); here \(F(|x|,u):=(f_1(|x|,u),f_2(|x|,u),\dots,f_L(|x|,u))\). Let \(B_R(0)\subset \mathbb{R}^n\) denotes the open ball with radius \(R\) which is centered at zero. The main result states that there exists a radially symmetric positive solution \(u\in C^{2k}(\mathbb{R}^n\setminus\left\{0\right\})\) provided that there is no radially symmetric solution of the class \( C^{2k}(B_R(0)\setminus\left\{0\right\})\cap C^{2k-1}(\overline{B_R(0)})\) to the corresponding problem on \(B_R(0)\) with Navier boundary conditions: \(u_i=\Delta u_i=\dots=(-\Delta)^{k_i-1}u_i\) on \(\partial B_R(0)\), for \(i=1,2,\dots,L\). The proof uses the shooting method and the topological degree theory. Then, several non-existence results for some particular cases of the nonlinearity \(F\) are proved for the Navier boundary value problem.