Existence of positive entire solutions for a class of quasilinear elliptic equations (Q753005)

Consider the quasilinear elliptic equation in Euclidean N-space: \[ Lu:=\sum^{N}_{i,j=1}a_{ij}(x)D_{ij}u+\sum^{N}_{i=1}b_ i(x)D_ iu=\lambda f(x,u,Du), \] where \(\lambda\) is a real constant and f satisfies \(f(x,u,0)=0\) for \((x,u)\in {\mathbb{R}}^ N\times [0,\infty)\) and is sublinear with respect to Du at \(Du=0\). Certain structure hypotheses are imposed on L and f. The author presents sufficient conditions for the existence of nonconstant bounded positive entire \((C^ 2({\mathbb{R}}^ N))\) solutions or unbounded positive entire solutions with specified growth at infinity. The proofs use a modified supersolution-subsolution method (explicitly constructed) which is dependent on the solutions of certain second order ordinary differential equations.