Multiple solutions for elliptic equations at resonance (Q5959071)

Let \(\Omega\) be a smooth bounded domain in \(\mathbb R^n\) and let \(g:{\mathbb R}\rightarrow {\mathbb R}\) be a smooth function. The paper deals with the semilinear elliptic problem \(-\Delta u=\lambda u+g(u)\) in \(\Omega\), subject to the Dirichlet boundary condition \(u=0\) on \(\partial\Omega\). The main assumptions imposed to the nonlinearity are: (i) \(g\) is odd; (ii) \(g\) is bounded; (iii) \(g(t)=o(t)\) as \(|t|\rightarrow\infty\); (iv) \(\lim_{|t|\rightarrow\infty}g'(t)=0\). The author establishes the existence of multiple solutions to the above problem, provided \(\lambda =\lambda_k\), i.e., \(\lambda\) is an eigenvalue of the self-adjoint operator \((-\Delta)\) in \(H^1_0(\Omega)\). The proof is based on global variational methods. In order to overcome the lack of compactness of the energy functional, the author introduces a penalization of this functional with suitable estimates on the Morse indexes of the critical points. In this way it is established the existence of at least \(N-1\) pairs of non trivial distinct solutions, where \(N\) is the difference between the Morse indexes at zero and at infinity.