Positive harmonically bounded solutions for semi-linear equations (Q6924675)

This article discusses the existence of positive solutions to the equation \(Lu=\varphi(\cdot, u)\) in an open set \(U\subset X\), where \(L\) is a secon-order elliptic or parabolic operator (the cases of Laplace, hear and fractional Laplace equations are included), \(\mu\) is a positive measure on \(U\), while \(\varphi\) is a measurable real function defined on \(U \times \mathbb{R}^+\) such that the mappings \(t \mapsto \varphi(x,t)\), \(x \in U\), are continuous, increasing and vanish at \(t = 0\).\N\NGiven a measurable function \(h\geq 0\) on \(X\) such that \(Lh=0\) in \(U\) and \(h\) is not identically 0 on \(U\), the authors investigate the following two problems:\N\N\begin{itemize}\N\item[1.] Under what conditions is there a (unique) positive solution \(u\) of the above equation, such that \(h-u\) is a potential on \(U\) and \(u = h\) in \(X \setminus U\)?\N\item[2.] Do there exist solutions \(0 \leq u \leq h\) which are nonidentically zero in \(U\) and such that \(u = h\) in \(X \setminus U\)?\N\end{itemize}\NThe approach relies on the various properties of the balayage spaces which the authors describe in detail in this work.