A remark on the symmetry of solutions to nonlinear elliptic equations (Q811580)

The author considers the symmetry of \(C^ 2\)-solutions to the Dirichlet problem \(\Delta u=f(u)\) in \(B\); \(u=0\) on \(\partial B\), where \(B\) is the \(n\)-dimensional ball and \(f\) is a \(C^ 1\)-function. It is proved that a solution \(u\) is radially symmetric if and only if its nodel set: \(\{x\in \overline B: u(x)=0\}\) is radially symmetric. This obviously implies Gidus-Ni-Nirenberg's result that the positive solutions are radially symmetric.