Nonlinear Fredholm operators with concompact fibers and applications to elliptic problems on \(\mathbb{R}^N\) (Q5957480)

Nonlinear Fredholm mappings \(F:X \to Y\) of a nonnegetive index are considered in real Banach spaces \(X,Y\). The main abstract result states that under certain additional assumptions, the set of all solutions of the equation \(F(x)=y\) is noncompact (and hence infinite) for almost every \(y \in F(X)\). Here, ``almost every'' is understood in the sense of the Baire category relative to \(F(X)\). The proof of this nonuniqueness result (not based on existence) relies on new arguments in which the author's concept of generalized critical value plays a central role. One of the basic assumptions is that the set of asymptotic values of \(F\) is dense in \(F(X)\). Applications to quasilinear second order elliptic equations on \(R^N\) viewed as operator equations in Sobolev spaces are considered. In this case, the basic assumption of denseness mentioned is sometimes equivalent to the existence of a nontrivial solution to the equation \(F(x)=F(0)\) and can be verified. Only simple examples with constant coefficients are fully discussed. However, the theory can be used also for some classes of problems with nonconstant coefficients and problems on exterior domains.