Principal Eigenvalues and Anti - Maximum Principle for Some Quasilinear Elliptic Equations on ℝN (Q4955504)

This paper is concerned with the existence and nonexistence of the positive principal eigenvalue of the problem in \(\mathbb{R}^N\): \[ - \text{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u) = \lambda g(x)|u|^{p-2}u,\quad x\in\mathbb{R}^N, \] \[ \lim_{|x|\to\infty} u(x) = 0, \] where \(1 < p < N\) and \(g\) is a bounded, Hölder continuous function with has positive measure, \(\{x : g(x) > 0\} > 0\) and several other conditions. The authors generalize some previous results concerning the case \(p = 2\), \textit{W. Allegretto} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 116, No.~3, 701-706 (1992; Zbl 0764.35031)], \textit{K. J. Brown, C. Cosner} and \textit{J. Flechinger} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 109, No.~1, 147-155 (1990; Zbl 0726.35089)], and \textit{K. J. Brown} and \textit{N. Stavrakakis} [Duke Math. J. 85, No.~1, 77-94 (1996; Zbl 0862.35010)]. The perturbed problem: \[ -\text{div}(|\nabla u|^{p-2}\nabla u)=\lambda g(x)|u|^{p-2} u+f(x),\quad x\in\mathbb{R}^N \] is also dealt with. Under certain conditions on \(f\), it is proved that there exists \(\varepsilon > 0\) such that this problem has a solution for any \(\lambda\in (0,\lambda_1)\cup(\lambda_1,\lambda_1+\varepsilon)\), where \(\lambda_1\) denotes the first eigenvalue. The anti-maximum principle, which can be considered as an extension of \textit{Ph. Clement} and \textit{L. A. Peletier} [J. Differ. Equations 34, 218-229 (1979; Zbl 0407.35033)] to unbounded domains, is also proved.