Variational methods for nonlinear perturbations of singular \(\varphi \)-Laplacians (Q545897)

Summary: Motivated by the existence of radial solutions to the Neumann problem involving the mean extrinsic curvature operator in Minkowski space \[ \text{div}\left( \frac{\nabla v}{\sqrt{1-|\nabla v|^2}}\right)= g(|x|,v) \quad \text{in }{\mathcal A}, \qquad \frac{\partial v}{\partial \nu}=0 \quad \text{on } \partial{\mathcal A}, \] where \(0\leq R_1<R_2\), \({\mathcal A}=\{x\in \mathbb R^N: R_1\leq |x|\leq R_2\}\) and \(g:[R_1,R_2]\times\mathbb R\to\mathbb R\) is continuous, we study the more general problem \[ \big[r^{N-1} \varphi(u')\big]'= r^{N-1}g(r,u), \quad u'(R_1)=0=u'(R_2), \] where \(\varphi:=\Phi':(-a,a) \to\mathbb R\) is an increasing homeomorphism with \(\varphi(0)=0\) and the continuous function \(\Phi:[-a,a] \to\mathbb R\) is of class \(C^1\) on \((-a,a)\). The associated functional in the space of continuous functions over \([R_1,R_2]\) is the sum of a convex lower semicontinuous functional and of a functional of class \(C^1\). Using the critical point theory of Szulkin, we obtain various existence and multiplicity results for several classes of nonlinearities. We also discuss the case of the periodic problem.