The Fučík spectrum of Schrödinger operators in strongly indefinite cases (Q2677733)

In this work, the authors study the Fučík spectrum of \(-\Delta +V\) , denoted by \(\Sigma (-\Delta +V )\), which is defined as the set of all \((a, b) \in \mathbb{R}^2\) such that \[ \begin{cases} -\Delta u+V(x)u=au^- + bu^+,\quad x \in \mathbb{R}^N,\\ \lim\limits_{|x|\to \infty} u(x) = 0, \end{cases} \] has a nontrivial solution \(u\) in the form domain of \(-\Delta + V\), where \(u^- = \min\{u, 0\}, u^+ = \max\{u, 0\}\). They care for strongly indefinite cases, for linear potential and assume: \((V_1)\) \(V\) is real-valued, \(V ^+ \in L^p_{\mathrm{loc}}(\mathbb{R}^N)\) and \(V ^- \in L^p(\mathbb{R}^N) + L^\infty (\mathbb{R}^N)\) for some \(p \in [2,\infty ) \cap (\frac{N}{2} ,\infty )\) where \(V ^+ := \max\{V, 0\}, V ^- := \min\{V, 0\}\). \((V_2)\) Adding a term of the form \(u \to Cu, C \in \mathbb{R} \) to both sides of (1.1) if necessary, then \begin{center} \(\begin{matrix} 0 \not\in \sigma (-\Delta +V ),\qquad\qquad\qquad\qquad\;\;\; \cr \sigma_{ess}(-\Delta +V ) \cap (-\infty , 0) \not= \emptyset , \qquad \quad\cr \sigma_{ess}(-\Delta +V ) \cap (0,+\infty ) \not= \emptyset ,\qquad \quad\cr (\sigma_{-1}, \sigma_0) \cap \sigma_{dis}(-\Delta +V ) = \{\lambda_i\}^s_{i=1}, \end{matrix}\) \end{center} where \begin{center} \( \begin{matrix} \sigma_{-1} = \sup\{\sigma_{ess}(-\Delta +V ) \cap (-\infty , 0)\}, \\ \;\sigma_0 =\inf\{\sigma_{ess}(-\Delta +V ) \cap (0,+\infty )\}. \end{matrix}\) \end{center} The authors show the existence of two Fučík spectrum curves stemming from a distinct eigenvalue in a gap of the essential spectrum. As an application, they consider nonlinear Schrödinger equations of the form \[ \begin{cases} -\Delta u + V (x)u = f(x, u), \; x \in \mathbb{R}^N, \\ \lim\limits_{|x|\to \infty} u(x) = 0, \end{cases} \tag{1} \] where \[ \frac{f(x, t)}{t}\to \begin{cases} a, \quad\text{as } t\to -\infty, \\ b, \quad\text{as } t\to +\infty, \end{cases} \] and \((a, b) \not\in \Sigma (-\Delta +V )\). For \(f\), the authors assume \((f_1)\) \, \(f(x, t) = bt^+ +at^- +g(x, t) \in C(\mathbb{R}^N \times \mathbb{R},R), g(x, 0) = 0, \lim_{|t|\to +\infty} \frac{g(x,t)}{t} = 0\) uniformly with respect to \(x \in \mathbb{R}^N,\) \(\frac{g(x,t)}{t}\) is bounded on \(\mathbb{R}^N \times R\setminus \{0\}\). \((f_2)\) \, Set \(F(x,t)=\int^t_0 f(x,s)\, ds\). Then \(F(x, t)\ge 0, \lambda_+ < \min\{a, b\} < \sigma_0\), \(\lim_{t\to 0} \frac{f(x,t)}{t} = 0\) uniformly with correspondence to \(x \in \mathbb{R}^N\), where \[ \lambda_+ :=\inf_{0\not=\varphi \in P_{(0,\infty )}H^1_m} \frac{\int_{\mathbb{R}^N} |\bigtriangledown \varphi |^2 + V \varphi^2}{ \int_{\mathbb{R}^N} \varphi^2}, \] where \[ H^1_m:= \{u \in H^1(\mathbb{R}^N) : \|u\|^2_m =\int_{\mathbb{R}^N} |\bigtriangledown u|^2 + (V + m)u^2 < \infty \}, \] where \(m+\inf\sigma(-\Delta+V)>0\). Theorem 1.2.\, Suppose \((a, b) \in Q_l, (a, b)\) is below \(C_{l1}\) or above \(C_{l2}\), and \((V_1)\), \((V_2), (f_1), (f_2)\) hold with \(\gamma > \sigma_{-1}\), \(\beta < \sigma_0\), where \(\beta = \sup_{t\not=0} f(x, t)/t\), \(\gamma =\inf_{t\not=0} f(x, t)/t\), \(Q_l, C_{l1}\) and \(C_{l2}\) are given by Section 3. Then (1) has one nontrivial solution. The authors' method is variational and main difficulties arise from the indefiniteness of the associate functional. They use new strategies to deal with the underlying difficulties of establishing boundedness and compactness properties of (PS) sequences and then use a finite-dimensional approximation method.