Multiple sign-changing radially symmetric solutions in a general class of quasilinear elliptic equations (Q894907)

The authors consider the following nonlinear eigenvalue problem \[ \begin{aligned} -(r^{\alpha}\phi(|u'(r)|)u'(r))'&=\lambda r^{\gamma}f(u(r), \;t\in (0,R),\\ u'(0)&=u(R)=0, \end{aligned} \] where \(\alpha\), \(\gamma\), \(R\) are given real numbers, \(\lambda>0\) is a parameter. \(\phi:\;(0,\infty)\rightarrow (0,\infty)\) is a suitable twice-differentiable function, \(f:\;\mathbb{R}\rightarrow \mathbb{R}\) is continuous and satisfies \(tf(t)>0\) for \(t\neq 0\). They prove that the problem admits an infinite sequence of sign-changing solutions. The result extends earlier ones in the special case \(\phi\) is in the form \(\phi(t)=|t|^{\beta}\). The main techniques are fixed point arguments and shooting method.