Heteroclinic solutions of boundary value problems on the real line involving singular \(\Phi \)-Laplacian operators (Q633673)

The solvability of the following boundary value problem is discussed \[ \left(a\left(x(t)\right)\Phi\left(x^\prime(t)\right)\right)^\prime=f\left(t,x(t),x^\prime(t)\right),\text{for }t\in\mathbb{R}, \] \[ x(-\infty)=\alpha<\beta=x(+\infty), \] where \(\Phi:(-r,r)\rightarrow\mathbb{R}\) is an increasing homeomorphism such that \(\Phi(0)=0\), \(a\) is a positive, continuous function and \(f\) is a Carathéodory nonlinear function. Existence and non-existence results are presented under suitable assumptions about the behaviour of the functions \(f\) and \(\Phi\) as \(y\rightarrow0\) and \(t\rightarrow\pm\infty\). The proofs rely on a fixed-point argument combined with lower and upper solutions method for a sequence of auxiliary boundary value problems on compact intervals. The technical conditions assumed in the main theorems are shown to be rather sharp. They are demonstrated for the particular cases when the right-hand side \(f\) has the form \(f(t,x,y)=b(t,x)c(x,y)\) and \(f(t,x,y)=h(t)g(x)c(y)\). For instance, let the following conditions be assumed in the latter case: the operator \(\Phi\) is asymptotic to a power \(|y|^{\mu}\) as \(y\rightarrow0\), the function \(h\in L^q_{loc}(\mathbb{R})\), for some \(1\leq q \leq\infty\), and satisfies \(h(t)\leq0\) for every \(t\), as well as \(\left|h(t)\right|\sim \text{const}.|t|^{\delta}\) when \(|t|\rightarrow\infty\), with \(\delta>-1\), the map \(g\) is continuous and positive in the interval \([\alpha,\beta]\), the continuous function \(c\) is such that \(c(y)>0\) for every \(y\neq0\) and \(\left|c(y)\right|\sim \text{const}|y|^{\nu}\) as \(y\rightarrow0\) for some constant \(\nu>0\). Then, as a corollary, the condition \(\nu<\delta+\mu+1\) is necessary and sufficient for the existence of heteroclinic solutions. Several other examples are given in the paper.