Nonlinear elliptic problems with superlinear reaction and parametric concave boundary condition (Q2630137)

The paper under review deals with the existence and characterization of solutions of the following nonlinear elliptic system with Neumann boundary condition \[ \begin{cases} -\Delta_p u(z)=f(z,u(z)) &\text{ in }\Omega,\\ |\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u\cdot n=\lambda\beta(z)u(z)^{q-1} & \text{ on }\partial\Omega, \end{cases} \] where \(\Delta_p u:=\operatorname{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)\) denotes the \(p-\)Laplacian operator, \(\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^N\) is a bounded domain with \(C^2-\)boundary with outward normal denoted by \(n\), \(1<q<p<+\infty,\) \(\lambda>0,\) \(\beta\in L^\infty(\Omega),\beta\neq 0, \beta(z)\geq 0\) for all \(z\in\Omega\) and \(f\) is a Carathéodory function with \((p-1)-\)superlinearity near \(+\infty.\) The above problem can be seen as an alternative version of the ``concave-convex'' problem, here the competition is between \(f\) and the boundary term. Under standard assumptions on the data, the authors show the existence of a positive real number \(\lambda^*\) such that the above problem has at least one positive \(C^1(\overline\Omega)\) (weak) solution \(u\) for all values \(\lambda\in(0,\lambda^*],\) and beyond this range there are no positive solutions. There exists also a smallest positive solution \(u_\lambda\) and the correspondence \((0,\lambda^*]\ni\lambda\mapsto u_\lambda\in C^1(\overline\Omega)\) is increasing and left-continuous. \(p=2\) will be a special case, in which the authors can ensure the existence of two different positive solutions for a similar range of \(\lambda\). Finally changing the assumptions on the data, they construct sign changing solutions as well.