A system of coupled pendulii (Q2492460)

This paper focuses on the following elliptic system for the vector function \(u:\overline{\Omega}\to{\mathbb R}^N\), that can be seen as a generalization of the periodic problem for coupled one-dimensional penduli. \[ \begin{cases} \Delta u_i+\langle a,\nabla u_i\rangle + b_i \sin(u_i)=f_i(x,u) & \text{in \(\Omega\)}\\ u_i=\text{constant} & \text{on \(\partial\Omega\)}\\ \int_{\partial\Omega} {\partial u_i \over \partial\nu} =0 \end{cases}\tag{1} \] where \(\Omega\subset{\mathbb R}^n\) is a bounded and smooth domain, and \(f=(f_1,\ldots,f_N):\overline{\Omega}\times{\mathbb R^N}\to{\mathbb R}^N\) is continuous. Two different existence theorems for classical solutions are provided. In the first one, the authors assume that for some \(R>0\) one has \[ \langle f(x,Ru),u\rangle>| b| \tag{2} \] for any \(u\) belonging to the boundary of the unit ball in \({\mathbb R}^N\) and prove, using topological degree arguments, that (1) has a classical solution \(u\) with \(\| u| _{C(\overline{\Omega},{\mathbb R}^N)}\leq R\). In the second result, (2) is replaced by assuming that for \(i=1,\ldots, N\) there are numbers \(R_i^+\geq R_i^-\) with the property that \[ \begin{cases} f_i(x,u_1,\ldots,R_i^+,\ldots,u_N)\geq b_i\sin(R_i^+),\\ f_i(x,u_1,\ldots,R_i^-,\ldots,u_N)\leq b_i\sin(R_i^-), \end{cases} \] for every \(u_j\) such that \(R_j^-\leq u_j\leq R_j^+\), \(j\neq i\). In this case, using upper and lower solution techniques, the authors show that there exists a classical solution \(u\) with the property that \(R_i^-\leq u_i(x)\leq R_i^+\), for \(i=1,\ldots,N\) and \(x\in\overline{\Omega}\).