On positivity for the biharmonic operator under Steklov boundary conditions (Q930408)

Let us consider \(\Omega\) being a bounded smooth domain in \(\mathbb R^n,\) \(n \geq 2, \) and the following elliptic problem, called Steklov problem, having parameter in the boundary condition: \[ \Delta^2 u= f\quad\text{in }\Omega, \qquad u=f\text{ and }\Delta u= \alpha u_\nu\quad \text{on }\partial \Omega \] where \(\alpha \in C(\partial \Omega),\) \(f \in L^2(\Omega)\) and \(\nu\) is the outside normal. The authors are interested in conditions on \(\alpha \) which guarantee that the above Steklov problem is positivity preserving, meaning \(f \geq 0 \) implies that \(u \geq 0.\) It is proved that this property is associated to the parameter considered in the boundary condition. Gazzola and Sweers point out that for Navier and Dirichlet boundary conditions it is known that all \(\alpha \) for which the positivity preserving property represent an interval. This result is similar to that is true obtained for the Steklov problem.