Second order boundary value problems with sign-changing nonlinearities and nonhomogeneous boundary conditions. (Q2881206)

The paper studies the differential equation NEWLINE\[NEWLINE u''+g(t)f(t,u)=0, \quad t\in (0,1),NEWLINE\]NEWLINE subject to the multi-point nonhomogeneous conditions NEWLINE\[NEWLINE u(0)=\alpha u(\xi )+\lambda, \quad u(1)=\beta u(\eta )+\mu, NEWLINE\]NEWLINE where \(f\:[0,1]\times \mathbb {R}\to \mathbb {R}\) and \(g\:[0,1]\to [0,\infty )\) are continuous with \(g(t)\not \equiv 0\) on \([0,1]\), \(\xi , \eta \in [0,1]\), \(\alpha \), \(\beta \), \(\lambda \), \(\mu \in [0,\infty ),\) \(\alpha (1-\xi )<1\), \(\beta \eta <1\) and \((1-\alpha )(1-\beta \eta )+(1-\beta )\alpha \xi >0\). The authors apply the topological degree theory and derive several new criteria for the existence of nontrivial solutions of the above boundary value problem provided the nonlinear term \(f\) is a sign-changing function and not necessarily bounded from below. Some of the existence conditions are determined by the relationship between the behavior of the quotient \(f(t,x)/x\) for \(x\) near 0 and \(\pm \infty \) and the smallest positive characteristic value of a related linear operator. Illustrative examples are given here, as well.