Multiple and nodal solutions for parametric Dirichlet equations driven by the double phase differential operator (Q6102855)

Let \(\Omega \subseteq \mathbb{R}^N\) (\(N \geq 3\)) be a bounded domain with a Lipschitz boundary \(\partial \Omega\). In this work, the authors establish the existence of solutions for the following parametric double phase Dirichlet problem \[ -\Delta_{p}^{a} u(z)-\Delta_{q} u(z)=\lambda f(z,u(z)) \mbox{ in } \Omega,\] \[u =0 \mbox{ on }\partial \Omega, \quad 1<q<p<N, \, \lambda>0. \] Given \(r \in (1,\infty)\) and \(a \in L^\infty(\Omega)\setminus\{0\}\), \(a(z)\geq 0\) for a.a. \(z \in \Omega\), by \(\Delta_{r}^a\) the authors denote the weighted \(r\)-Laplace differential operator defined by \[ \Delta_{r}^a u= \mbox{div }(a(z)|\nabla u|^{r-2}\nabla u). \] When \(a\equiv 1\), then they have the usual \(r\)-Laplace differential operator denoted by \(\Delta_r\). The differential operator in the above problem is the sum of two such operators and so it is not homogeneous. Here, the authors do not assume that \(a(\cdot)\) is bounded away from zero (that is, they do not require that \(\mathop{\mathrm{ess\,inf}}\limits_{\Omega} a>0\)). Under a set of hypotheses on \(f (z, x)\) that imply the presence of a concave term near zero, the authors obtain a multiplicity theorem of at least three nontrivial solutions with sign information. The strategy of proofs is based on variational tools together with critical groups. Further, the authors establish the asymptotic behavior of the nodal solution as the parameter goes to zero.