Existence and uniqueness of positive solution for singular boundary value problem (Q814077)

The paper deals with the Sturm-Liouville singular BVP \[ -(p(t)u'(t))'-q(t)u(t)=f(t,u(t)),\quad t\in (0,1), \leqno (1) \] \[ \alpha_1u(0)+\beta_1u'(0)=0,\quad \alpha_2u(1)+\beta_2u'(1)=0, \leqno (2) \] where \(p\in C^1[0,1]\) is positive, \(q\in C[0,1]\) is nonpositive, \(\alpha_1, \alpha_2 \geq 0\), \(\beta_1\leq 0\), \(\beta_2\geq 0\), and \(f:(0,1)\times (0,\infty)\to [0,\infty)\) is continuous and may be singular at \(t=0, t=1\) and \(u=0\). The authors assume that problem (1),(2), is not at resonance, i.e., that the corresponding linear homogeneous problem has only the trivial solution. Under some integrability condition and the monotonicity of \(f\) in \(u\), the authors prove a nice result on the existence of a unique positive solution of (1), (2). Their second result on a unique positive solution concerns the case that the right-hand side of (1) admits the form \(f(t,u,u).\) The proofs are based on perturbation technique, maximum principle, Schauder's fixed-point theorem and mixed monotone iterative technique. Some examples are presented to illustrate the main theorems.