Unbounded solutions of BVP for second order ODE with \(p\)-Laplacian on the half line. (Q351959)

The paper studies the differential equation \[ (\rho (t)\varphi (x'(t)))'+f(t,x(t))=0, \quad t\in (0,\infty ) \eqno (1) \] subject to the boundary conditions \[ x(0)=\int _0^{\infty }g(s)x(s)\,\text{d}s +a,\quad \lim _{t\to \infty }\varphi ^{-1}(\rho (t))x'(t)=b, \eqno (2) \] where \(a,b\geq 0\), \(g: [0,\infty )\to [0,\infty )\) is continuous with \(\int _0^{\infty }g(s)\, \text{d}s <1\), \(f\:(0,\infty )\times [0,\infty )\to [0,\infty )\), \(\rho \: (0,\infty )\to (0,\infty )\) are continuous and may be singular at \(t=0\), and \(\varphi (x)=| x| ^{p-2}x\) with \(p>1\). The authors apply the Leggett-Williams fixed point theorem and derive a multiplicity result about the existence of at least three unbounded positive solutions of problem (1), (2). The proof is based on a special construction of a cone, which cannot be constructed by a standard way because possible solutions are not concave if \(\rho \not \equiv 1\). An illustrative example is shown as well.