Monotonicity of certain differential operators in divergence form (Q2639318)

The authors prove that if \(b\in C^ 1({\mathbb{R}})\) and \(b(s)\geq b_ 0>0\) for every \(s\in {\mathbb{R}}\), then the operator \(A(u)=-(b(u)u')'\) is monotone over the Sobolev space \(H^ 1_ 0(0,1)\) if and only if b is constant. They also show that if \(b\in C^ 1({\mathbb{R}})\), \(c\in C^ 2({\mathbb{R}})\) and \(A(u)=-(b(u')+c(u))'\) then the following holds: (i) if A is monotone over \(W_ 0^{1,\infty}(0,1)\), then \(b'(\xi)\geq 0\) for every \(\xi\in {\mathbb{R}}\) and \(| c'(s)|\) is bounded for every \(s\in {\mathbb{R}};\) (ii) there exist a monotone function b and a nonlinear function c such that A is monotone.