Multiplicity of solutions for parametric \(p\)-Laplacian equations with nonlinearity concave near the origin (Q973690)

The authors consider the following non-linear elliptic problems \[ \begin{aligned} -& \text{div} \big( \| Dx (z) \|^{p-2} Dx (z) \big) = \lambda |x(z)|^{q-2} x(z) + f(z,x(z)) \quad \text{a.e. in }\mathbb Z, \\ &x|_{\partial\mathbb Z} = 0, \quad 1< q < p < +\infty,\quad \lambda > 0, \end{aligned} \] where \(Z\) is a bounded open set in \({\mathbb R}^N\) with \(C^2\)-boundary. The concavity the authors refer to comes from the fact that the function \(|x|^{q-2}\) is \(p\)-sublinear, while \(f\) is assumed to be first \(p\)-linear and then \(p\)-superlinear at infinity. This problem was studied in many particular situations. The authors include some of them in the present paper. They use a variational approach, combined with the method of subsolutions and supersolutions with suitable truncation techniques. In particular, they prove, when \(f\) is \(p\)-linear and under suitable assumptions, that there are three values \(\lambda_+\), \(\lambda_-\), \(\lambda_0\) such that, for every \(\lambda \in (0, \lambda_+)\), the problem above has (at least) two positive solutions, \(x_0\) and \(\hat{x}\) with \(x_0 < \hat{x}\), for every \(\lambda \in (0, \lambda_-)\), the problem above has (at least) two negative solutions, \(v_0\) and \(\hat{v}\) with \(\hat{v} < v_0\), and for \(\lambda \in (0, \lambda_0)\), the problem above has one solution which is nodal (changing sign). In the last section, they treat the case when \(f\) is \(p\)-superlinear.