Positive answer to Berestycki's open problem on the unit ball (Q329855)

On the unit ball \(\Omega \subset \mathbb{R}^N\) for \(N \geq 1\) the authors study the semilinear eigenvalue problem \[ \begin{aligned} - \Delta u & = \lambda u + |u| \quad \text{in}~\Omega, \\ u & = 0 \quad \text{on}~\partial \Omega. \end{aligned} \] As the main result they show that the above problem possesses infinitely many so-called half-eigenvalues; this gives a positive answer to a special case of an open problem posed by Berestycki in 1977. In order to do so, the authors establish a unilateral global bifurcation result for a class of equations on intervals and apply it to the one-dimensional equation which arises from the radial part of the eigenvalue problem under consideration.