Property of positive solutions and its applications for Sturm-Liouville singular boundary value problems (Q960211)

The author provides some necessary conditions for the existence of positive solutions for Sturm-Liouville singular boundary value problems of the type \[ -(p(t)u')' + s(t)u = f(t,u), \;0 < t < 1, \] \[ \alpha u(0) - \beta u'(0) = 0, \;\gamma u(1) + \delta u'(1) = 0. \] Here, \(p \in C^1 ([0,1],(0,+\infty)), \;s \in C([0,1],[0,+\infty)),\) \(\alpha, \beta, \gamma, \delta\) are nonnegative real numbers with \(\alpha \gamma + \alpha \delta + \beta \gamma >0.\) The nonlinear term \(f: (0,1) \times \mathbb{R}^+ \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^+\) may be singular at \(t=0, t=1\) or \(u= 0\) and, in addition, satisfies \[ \liminf_{(t,u) \rightarrow (0^+,0^+)} \;f(t,u) >0, \quad \liminf_{(t,u) \rightarrow (1^-,0^+)} \;f(t,u) >0. \] For instance, in the cases \(s = 0,\) or \(s \neq 0\) and \(f(t,u)\) satisfying the previous restrictions, the author proves that if \(w\) is a \(C^1[0,1]\) positive solution, then there exist real numbers \(0 < m < 1 < M\) such that \(me(t) \leq w(t) \leq Me(t), \;\forall \;t \in [0,1].\) Here \(e(t) = G(t,t)\) where \(G(t,s)\) is the Green's function of the linear problem. Finally, some consequences about the nonexistence of positive solutions of the nonlinear problem are developed.