Asymmetric Robin problems with indefinite potential and concave terms (Q2631654)

In this paper the authors study the following parametric Robin problem \[ \begin{cases} -\Delta u(z) +\xi(z)u(z)=f(z,u(z))-\lambda |u(z)|^{q-2}u(z) \quad & \text{in }\Omega,\\ \frac{\partial u}{\partial n}+\beta(z) u(z)=0 & \text{on }\partial\Omega, \end{cases}\tag{P\(_{\lambda}\)} \] where \(\Omega \subseteq \mathbb{R}^N\) is a bounded domain with a \(C^2\)-boundary, \(\xi \in L^s(\Omega)\) \((s>N)\) is indefinite (that is, sign changing) and \(f: \Omega\times \mathbb{R}\to\mathbb{R}\) is a Carathéodory function such that \(f(z,\cdot)\) has linear growth near \(\pm\infty\). Note that the asymptotic behavior of \(f(z,\cdot)\) is asymmetric as \(x\to\pm\infty\), that is, the authors assume that the quotient \(\frac{f(z,x)}{x}\) (as \(x \to +\infty\)) stays above the principal eigenvalue \(\hat{\lambda}_1\) of the differential operator \(u \mapsto -\Delta u +\xi(z)u\) with Robin boundary condition while the quotient \(\frac{f(z,x)}{x}\) (as \(x \to -\infty\)) stays below \(\hat{\lambda}_1\) with possible interaction (resonance) with respect to \(\hat{\lambda}_1\) from the left. Hence, \(f(z,\cdot)\) is a crossing (jumping) nonlinearity. In the term \(-\lambda|u|^{q-2}u\), it is supposed that \(\lambda>0\) is a parameter and \(1<q<2\). Therefore, this term is a concave nonlinearity. In the main results the authors prove two multiplicity results in which they show that problem (P\(_{\lambda}\)) has four and five nontrivial smooth solutions, respectively, for all \(\lambda>0\) sufficiently small. Their approach uses variational tools based on critical point theory along with suitable truncation, perturbation and comparison techniques and Morse theory (critical groups).