Abstract
We consider a nonlinear Robin problem driven by the p-Laplacian and a parametric concave-convex reaction with the parameter multiplying the convex (superlinear) term. We prove a multiplicity result for positive solutions which is global in the parameter \(\lambda >0\) (bifurcation-type theorem). We also show the existence of a minimal positive solution \(u_{\lambda }^*\) and determine the monotonicity and continuity properties of the map \(\lambda \longmapsto u_{\lambda }^*\)
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1 Introduction
Let \(\Omega \subseteq \mathbb {R}^N\) be a bounded domain with a \(C^2\)-boundary \(\partial \Omega \). We study the following parametric Robin problem
![figure a](http://media.springernature.com/lw685/springer-static/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs12215-023-00918-z/MediaObjects/12215_2023_918_Figa_HTML.png)
By \(\Delta _p\) we denote the p-Laplacian differential operator defined by
There is also a potential term \(\xi (z)u^{p-1}\) with \(\xi \in L^{\infty }(\Omega )\), \(\xi (z)\geqslant 0\) for almost all \(z\in \Omega \). In the reaction we have the combined effects of two nonlinearities g(z, x) and \(\lambda f(z,x)\) with \(\lambda >0\) being a parameter. Both functions are Carathéodory. We assume that \(g(z,\cdot )\) is strictly \((p-1)\)-sublinear as \(x\rightarrow +\infty \), while \(f(z,\cdot )\) is \((p-1)\)-superlinear as \(x\rightarrow +\infty \), but need not satisfy the usual in such cases Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz condition. So, in the reaction we have the combined effect of concave and convex terms. However, in our case this parameter multiplies the convex (superlinear) term, while in the classical “concave-convex problem”, the parameter multiplies the concave (sublinear) term. This changes the structure of the equation and consequently the approach is different.
In the Robin boundary condition \(\frac{\partial u}{\partial n_p}\) denotes the conormal derivative of u corresponding to the p-Laplacian and if \(u\in C^1(\overline{\Omega })\), then
with n being the outward unit normal on \(\partial \Omega \). For general u, the boundary condition is understood using the nonlinear Green’s identity (see Papageorgiou-Rădulescu-Repovš [19, p. 35]). The boundary coefficient \(\beta \) is nonnegative.
Our aim is to prove a multiplicity theorem for the positive solutions of \((P_{\lambda })\) which is global with respect to the parameter \(\lambda >0\), that is, our result gives a precise description of the changes in the set of positive solutions as the parameter \(\lambda \) varies in \((0,+\infty )\) (bifurcation-type theorem). So, our main result in the paper (Theorem 3.8) establishes the existence of a critical parameter value \(\lambda ^*>0\) such that
\(\bullet \) for all \(\lambda \in (0,\lambda ^*)\) problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has at least two distinct positive solutions;
\(\bullet \) for \(\lambda =\lambda ^*\) problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has at least one positive solutions;
\(\bullet \) for \(\lambda >\lambda ^*\) problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has no positive solutions.
This global multiplicity result reveals an interesting discontinuity property for the “spectrum” of \((P_{\lambda })\). This is better illustrated when we consider the standard “concave-convex” reaction
with \(1<q<p<r<p^*\), where
According to our global multiplicity result described above, for all \(\lambda >0\) small problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has at least two positive solutions. On the other hand in the limit case \(\lambda =0\), the problem becomes
This problem has a unique positive solution (see Proposition 2.6 in Sect. 2). For the other case where the parameter \(\lambda >0\) multiplies the concave term, the limit problem (that is for \(\lambda =0\)) always has a positive solution which is not unique (see Papageorgiou-Rădulescu [14]). This illustrates the different structure of the two concave-convex problems. We mention also the recent works of Papageorgiou-Rădulescu-Repovš [16] and Papageorgiou-Vetro-Vetro [20], where the reader can find instances of such discontinuities in the “spectrum” of parametric problems.
In the past most the works on concave-convex problems, focused on Dirichlet problems with the parameter multiplying the concave (sublinear) term. Everything started with the paper of Ambrosetti-Brézis-Cerami [2], which deals with semilinear equations driven by the Laplacian. Their work was extended to nonlinear Dirichlet problems driven by the p-Laplacian by García Azorero-Manfredi-Peral Alonso [5] and Guo-Zhang [9]. All the aforementioned works deal with problems having the classical concave-convex reaction
with \(1<q<p<r<p^*\). More general differential operators and/or reactions can be found in the works of Papageorgiou-Rădulescu-Repovš [15], Rădulescu-Repovš [23] (semilinear equations) and El Manouni-Papageorgiou-Winkert [3], Papageorgiou-Rădulescu-Repovš [18], Papageorgiou-Vetro-Vetro [21], Winkert [24] (nonlinear equations). We also mention the recent work of Papageorgiou-Zhang [22], where the “concave” contribution comes from the boundary condition. The only “concave-convex” work with the parameter multiplying the convex (superlinear) term, is that of Marano-Marino-Papageorgiou [12]. There the problem is a Dirichlet (p, q)-equation, with the concave contribution being of the power form (\(g(z,u)=u^{q-1}\)) and the condition on \(f(z,\cdot )\) are more restrictive (see hypotheses \((h_1)\)–\((h_4)\) in [12]).
2 Mathematical background: hypotheses
The main spaces in the study of \((P_{\lambda })\) are the Sobolev space \(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\), the Banach space \(C^1(\overline{\Omega })\) and the “boundary” Lebesgue space \(L^s(\partial \Omega )\) (\(1\leqslant s<+\infty \)).
By \(\Vert \cdot \Vert \) we denote the norm of \(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) defined by
The Banach space \(C^1(\overline{\Omega })\) is ordered with positive (order) cone
This cone has a nonempty interior given by
We will also use another open cone in \(C^1(\overline{\Omega })\) which is defined by
On \(\partial \Omega \) we consider the \((N-1)\)-dimensional Hausdorff (surface) measure \(\sigma \). Using this measure we can define in the usual way the boundary Lebesgue space \(L^s(\partial \Omega )\) \((1\leqslant s\leqslant +\infty )\). From the theory of Sobolev spaces, we know that there exists a unique continuous linear operator \(\widehat{\gamma }_0:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow L^p(\partial \Omega )\) known as the “trace operator” such that
So, the trace operator extends the notion of “boundary values” to all Sobolev functions. In the sequel for the sake of notational simplicity, we drop the use of the trace operator \(\widehat{\gamma }_0\). All restrictions of Sobolev functions on \(\partial \Omega \) are understood in the sense of traces. We mention that using the trace operator, we have that \(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\subseteq L^s(\partial \Omega )\) continuously for all \(1\leqslant s\leqslant \frac{(N-1)p}{N-p}\) if \(p<N\) and for all \(1\leqslant s<+\infty \) if \(N\leqslant p\). Also \(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\subseteq L^s(\partial \Omega )\) compactly for all \(1\leqslant s<\frac{(N-1)p}{N-p}\) if \(p<N\) and for all \(1\leqslant s<+\infty \) if \(N\leqslant p\).
If \(u:\Omega \longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) is a measurable function, we define
If \(u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\), then \(u^{\pm }\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) and we have \(u=u^+-u^-\), \(|u|=u^++u^-\). Also, given two measurable functions \(u,v:\Omega \longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) such that \(u(z)\leqslant v(z)\) for all \(z\in \Omega \), we define
We introduce the hypotheses on the potential function \(\xi \) and on the boundary coefficient \(\beta \).
\(\underline{H_0}:\) \(\xi \in L^{\infty }(\Omega )\), \(\xi (z)\geqslant 0\) for almost \(z\in \Omega \), \(\beta \in C^{0,\alpha }(\partial \Omega )\) with \(0<\alpha <1\), \(\beta (z)\geqslant 0\) for all \(z\in \partial \Omega \) and \(\xi \not \equiv 0\) or \(\beta \not \equiv 0\).
Remark 2.1
With this hypotheses, we cover also the case of Neumann problem, which corresponds to the case \(\beta \equiv 0\).
Let \(\gamma _p:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) be defined by
Hypotheses \(H_0\) together with Lemma 4.11 of Mugnai-Papageorgiou [13] and Proposition 2.4 of Gasiński-Papageorgiou [8], imply that there exists \(c_0>0\) such that
(that is, \(\gamma _p(\cdot )\) is equivalent norm on \(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\)).
Let \(\widehat{\lambda }_1\) be the first eigenvalue of
On account of (2.1), we have \(\widehat{\lambda }_1>0\). We know that
This infimum is realized on the corresponding eigenspace, the elements of which have fixed sign. Let \(\widehat{u}_1\) be the positive, \(L^p\)-normalized (that is, \(\Vert \widehat{u}_1\Vert _p=1\)) eigenfunction for \(\widehat{\lambda }_1\). We know that \(\widehat{u}_1\in \textrm{int}C_+\). Note that \(\widehat{\lambda }_1\) is the only eigenvalue with eigenfunctions of constant sign (see Fragnelli-Mugnai-Papageorgiou [4]).
Let \(A:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow W^{1,p}(\Omega )^*\) be defined by
From Gasiński-Papageorgiou [7, p. 279], we have the following property.
Proposition 2.2
If hypotheses \(H_0\) hold, then A is continuous, monotone (thus maximal monotone too) and of type \((S)_+\), that is “if \(u_n{\mathop {\longrightarrow }\limits ^{w}}u\) in \(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) and
then \(u_n\longrightarrow u\) in \(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\).”
Next we introduce the hypotheses on the two functions involved in the reaction (right hand side of \((P_{\lambda })\)).
\(\underline{H_1}:\) \(g:\Omega \times \mathbb {R}\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) is a Carathéodory function such that \(g(z,0)=0\) for almost all \(z\in \Omega \) and
-
(i)
for every \(\varrho >0\), there exists \(a_{\varrho }\in L^{\infty }(\Omega )\) such that
$$\begin{aligned} |g(z,x)|\leqslant a_{\varrho }(z)\quad \text {for a.a.}\ z\in \Omega ,\ \text {all}\ 0\leqslant x\leqslant \varrho ; \end{aligned}$$ -
(ii)
\(\displaystyle \lim _{x\rightarrow +\infty }\frac{g(z,x)}{x^{p-1}}=0\) uniformly for almost all \(z\in \Omega \);
-
(iii)
there exist \(q\in (1,p)\) and \(\delta >0\), \(\widehat{c}>0\) such that
$$\begin{aligned} \widehat{c}x^{q-1}\leqslant g(z,x)\quad \text {for a.a.}\ z\in \Omega ,\ \text {all}\ 0\leqslant x\leqslant \delta . \end{aligned}$$
Remark 2.3
Since we are interested on positive solutions and the above hypotheses concern the positive semiaxis \(\mathbb {R}_+=[0,+\infty )\), without any loss of generality we may assume that \(g(z,x)=0\) for almost all \(z\in \Omega \), all \(x\leqslant 0\). Hypothesis \(H_1(ii)\) implies that \(g(z,\cdot )\) is strictly \((p-1)\)-sublinear as \(x\rightarrow +\infty \) (“concave” nonlinearity). Hypothesis \(H_1(iii)\) implies that \(g(z,\cdot )\) is \((p-1)\)-sublinear as \(x\rightarrow 0^+\). We point out that we do not assume that \(g\geqslant 0\). It can change sign. The following functions satisfy hypotheses \(H_1\) (for the sake of simplicity we drop the z-dependence):
with \(1<q<\tau <p\). Note that \(g_2\) is sign changing.
\(\underline{H_2}\): \(f:\Omega \times \mathbb {R}\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) is a Carathéodory function such that \(f(z,0)=0\) for almost all \(z\in \Omega \) and
-
(i)
\(f(z,x)\leqslant a(z)(1+x^{r-1})\) for almost all \(z\in \Omega \), all \(x\geqslant 0\), with \(a\in L^{\infty }(\Omega )\), \(p<r<p^*\);
-
(ii)
if \(F(z,x)=\int _0^x f(z,s)\,ds\), then \(\lim \limits _{x\rightarrow +\infty }\frac{F(z,x)}{x^p}=+\infty \) uniformly for almost all \(z\in \Omega \);
-
(iii)
if \(G(z,x)=\int _0^x g(z,s)\,ds\) and
$$\begin{aligned} e_{\lambda }(z,x)=\big (g(z,x)+\lambda f(z,x)\big )-p\big (G(z,x)+\lambda F(z,x)\big ),\quad \lambda >0, \end{aligned}$$then there exists \(\widetilde{\vartheta }_{\lambda }\in L^!(\Omega )\) such that
$$\begin{aligned} e_{\lambda }(z,x)\leqslant e_{\lambda }(z,y)+\widetilde{\vartheta }_{\lambda }(z)\quad \text {for a.a.}\ z\in \Omega ,\ \text {all}\ 0\leqslant x\leqslant y; \end{aligned}$$ -
(iv)
\(\displaystyle \lim _{x\rightarrow 0^+}\frac{f(z,x)}{x^{p-1}}=0\) uniformly for almost all \(z\in \Omega \) and for every \(s>0\), there exists \(\eta _s>0\) such that \(\eta _s\leqslant f(z,x)\) for almost all \(z\in \Omega \), all \(x\geqslant s\).
Remark 2.4
Again we assume that \(f(z,x)=0\) for almost all \(z\in \Omega \), all \(x\leqslant 0\). Evidently in hypothesis \(H_2(iii)\) we can assume that \(\lambda \rightarrow \Vert \widetilde{\vartheta }_{\lambda }\Vert _1\) is increasing. Also, if in \(H_2(iii)\) we let \(x=0\) and use hypotheses \(H_1(ii)\) and \(H_2(ii)\), we see that
Therefore \(f(z,\cdot )\) is \((p-1)\)-superlinear (“convex” nonlinearity). Usually problems with superlinear reaction are treated using the so-called Ambrosetti-Rabinowith condition. We recall that this condition (unilateral version since \(g(z,x)=f(z,x)=0\) for almost all \(z\in \Omega \), all \(x\leqslant 0\)), says that there exist \(\eta >p\) and \(M>0\) such that
Integrating, we obtain the weaker requirement that
for some \(c_1>0\), thus
for some \(c_2>0\). So, we see that the Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz condition imposes at least \((\eta -1)\)-polynomial growth on \(f(z,\cdot )\). This way we exclude superlinear functions with slower growth as \(x\rightarrow +\infty \). Consider the functions (as before we drop the z-dependence):
with \(1<p<\eta <p^*.\) Then these two functions combined with any of \(g_1\) or \(g_2\) satisfy hypothesis \(H_2(iii)\). Note that \(f_2\) does not satisfy the Ambrosetti-Rabinowitz condition.
\(\underline{H_3}\): For every \(\varrho >0\) and every \(J\subseteq (0,+\infty )\) finite, there exists \(\widehat{\xi }_{\varrho }^J>0\) such that for almost all \(z\in \Omega \), all \(\lambda \in J\), the function
is nondecreasing on \([0,\varrho ]\).
Remark 2.5
Any pair of functions g, f formed by the collections \(\{g_1,g_2\}\) and \(\{f_1,f_2\}\) satisfies \(H_3\). In general, if \(g(z,\cdot )\) and \(f(z,\cdot )\) are differentiable and for every \(J\subseteq (0,+\infty )\) finite, we have
for almost all \(z\in \Omega \), all \(0\leqslant x\leqslant \varrho \), all \(\lambda \in J\), with \(\widehat{\xi }_{\varrho }^J>0\), then hypothesis \(H_3\) is satisfied.
We introduce the following sets related to problem \((P_{\lambda })\):
Also we set
Note that on account of hypotheses \(H_1(i),(ii)\), we have
for some \(c_3>0\). Also hypothesis \(H_1(iii)\) and the fact that \(f\geqslant 0\) imply that for all \(\lambda >0\), we have
This unilateral growth restriction on the reaction, leads to the following auxiliary Robin problem
Proposition 2.6
If hypotheses \(H_0\) hold, then problem (2.4) admits a unique positive solution \(\widetilde{u}\in \textrm{int}C_+\).
Proof
First we show the existence of a positive solution. To this end, let \(\psi _0:W^{1,p}_0(\Omega )\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) be the \(C^1\)-functional defined by
for some \(c_4>0\) (see (2.1) and recall that the embedding \(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\subseteq L^q(\Omega )\) is continuous). So \(\psi _0\) is coercive (recall that \(q<p\)).
Also from the Sobolev embedding theorem and the compactness of the trace operator, we infer that \(\psi _0\) is sequentially weakly lower semicontinuous. So, by the Weierstrass-Tonelli theorem, we can find \(\widetilde{u}\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) such that
Recall that \(\widehat{u}_1\in \textrm{int}C_+\) and let \(t>0\). Then
Since \(1<q<p\), choosing \(t\in (0,1)\) small, we have
so
(see (2.5)) and thus \(\widetilde{u}\ne 0\). From (2.5) we have
so
In (2.6) we choose \(h=-\widetilde{u}^-\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) and obtain
so
(see (2.1)). Then from (2.6) and (2.7) we have
From (2.8) and Proposition 2.10 of Papageorgiou-Rădulescu [14], we have that
Applying Theorem 2 of Lieberman [11], we infer that
From (2.8) we have that
so \(\widetilde{u}\in \textrm{int}C_+\) (see Gasiński-Papageorgiou [6]).
Now we show the uniqueness of this positive solution of (2.4). So, suppose that \(\widetilde{v}\) is another positive solution of (2.4). Again we have \(\widetilde{v}\in \textrm{int}C_+\). Consider the function
Using the nonlinear Picone’s identity of Allegretto-Huang [1], we have
(using the nonlinear Green’s identity; see Gasiński-Papageorgiou [6, p. 211]). Interchanging the roles of \(\widetilde{u}\) and \(\widetilde{v}\) in the above argument we also have
Adding (2.9) and (2.10) we have
so \(\widetilde{u}=\widetilde{v}\) (recall that \(1<q<p\)).
This proves the uniqueness of the positive solution \(\widetilde{u}\in \textrm{int}C_+\) of problem (2.4). \(\square \)
Since \(\widetilde{u}\in \textrm{int}C_+\), we can find \(t\in (0,1)\) small such that
with \(\delta >0\) as in the hypothesis \(H_1(iii)\). Then \(\overline{u}\in \textrm{int}C_+\) and
(since \(t\in (0,1)\) and \(1<q<p\)).
3 Positive solutions
First we show the nonemptiness of \(\mathcal {L}\) and determine the regularity of the elements of the solution set \(S_{\lambda }\).
Proposition 3.1
If hypotheses \(H_0\), \(H_1\), \(H_2\) and \(H_3\) hold, then \(\mathcal {L}\ne \emptyset \) and for every \(\lambda >0\) we have \(S_{\lambda }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\).
Proof
Let \(\overline{u}\in \textrm{int}C_+\) be as above. For \(\lambda >0\) we consider the Carathéodory function \(k_{\lambda }:\Omega \times \mathbb {R}\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) defined by
We set
and consider the \(C^1\)-functional \(\widehat{\varphi }_{\lambda }:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) defined by
Let \(u\in \textrm{int}C_+\) and choose \(t\in (0,1)\) small so that \(tu\leqslant \overline{u}\) (recall that \(\overline{u}\in \textrm{int}C_+\)). We have
(see (3.1)). Since \(t\in (0,1)\) and \(p>1\), choosing \(t\in (0,1)\) even smaller if necessary, we have
On account of hypotheses \(H_1\), given \(\varepsilon >0\), we can find \(c_5=c_5(\varepsilon )>0\) such that
so
Then for \(u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) we have
for some \(c_6,c_7,c_8>0\) (see hypothesis \(H_1(ii)\), (3.3), hypothesis \(H_1(i)\) and recall that \(\overline{u}(z)\leqslant \delta \) for all \(z\in \overline{\Omega }\)). Choose \(\varrho _0>0\) such that
Having fixed \(\varrho _0>0\) as above, choose \(\lambda _0>0\) small so that
Returning to (3.4), we have
Let \(\overline{B}_0=\overline{B}_{\varrho _0}=\{u\in W^{1,p}(\Omega ):\ \Vert u\Vert \leqslant \varrho _0\}\). The functional \(\widehat{\varphi }_{\lambda }\) is sequentially weakly lower semicontinuous and \(\overline{B}_0\) is sequentially weakly compact (from the reflexivity of \(W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) and the Eberlein-Smulian theorem). So, we can find \(u_{\lambda }\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) such that
so
(see (3.2) and (3.5)). From (3.6) and (3.7) it follows that
so
In (3.8) we choose \(h=(\overline{u}-u_{\lambda })^+\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\). Then
(see (3.1), (2.11) use hypothesis \(H_1(iii)\) and recall that \(f\geqslant 0\) and \(\overline{u}(z)\leqslant \delta \) for all \(z\in \overline{\Omega }\)), so
Then on account of (3.1), (3.9) and (3.8), we obtain
As before the nonlinear regularity theorem (see Lieberman [11] and Papageorgiou-Rădulescu [14]) implies that \(u_{\lambda }\in C_+{\setminus } \{0\}\). Let \(\varrho =\Vert u_{\lambda }\Vert _{\infty }\) and with \(J=\{\lambda \}\), let \(\widehat{\xi }_{\varrho }^{J}>0\) be as postulated by hypothesis \(H_3\). Then from (3.10) we have
so \(u_{\lambda }\in \textrm{int}C_+\) (see Gasiński-Papageorgiou [6, p. 738]). Therefore we have proved that
and
\(\square \)
Next we show that \(\mathcal {L}\) is an interval (connected).
Proposition 3.2
If hypotheses \(H_0\), \(H_1\), \(H_2\) and \(H_3\) hold, \(\lambda \in \mathcal {L}\) and \(0<\mu <\lambda \), then \(\mu \in \mathcal {L}\).
Proof
Since \(\lambda \in \mathcal {L}\) we can find \(u_{\lambda }\in S_{\lambda }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\). We consider the following truncation of the reaction for the problem \((P_{\mu })\):
This is a Carathéodory function. We set
and consider the \(C^1\)-functional \(\widehat{\psi }_{\mu }:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) defined by
From (3.11) and (2.1) it is clear that \(\widehat{\psi }_{\mu }\) is coercive. Also using the Sobolev embedding theorem and the compactness of the trace map, we see that \(\widehat{\psi }_{\mu }\) is sequentially weakly lower semicontinuous. So, we can find \(u_{\mu }\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) such that
We choose \(t\in (0,1)\) small so that
Since \(\widehat{u}_1,u_{\lambda }\in \textrm{int}C_+\) such a \(t\in (0,1)\) exists. We have
(see hypothesis \(H_1(iii)\) and recall that \(\Vert \widehat{u}_1\Vert _p=1\)). Since \(1<q<p\), by choosing \(t\in (0,1)\) even smaller if necessary, we have that
so
(see (3.12)) and thus \(u_{\mu }\ne 0\).
From (3.12) we have
so
In (3.13) we first choose \(h=-u_{\mu }^-\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\). Then
(see (3.11)), so
(see (2.1)). Nest in (3.13) we choose \((u_{\mu }-u_{\lambda })^+\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\). Then, using (3.10) and since \(0<\mu <\lambda \) and \(f\geqslant 0\), we have
so \(u_{\mu }\leqslant u_{\lambda }\) (see Proposition 2.2). So, we have proved that
Then (3.14), (3.11) and (3.13) imply that
and so \(\mu \in \mathcal {L}\). \(\square \)
Embedded in the above proof, is the following “monotonicity” property for \(S_{\lambda }\) as a function of the parameter \(\lambda >0\).
Corollary 3.3
If hypotheses \(H_0\), \(H_1\), \(H_2\) and \(H_3\) hold, \(\lambda \in \mathcal {L}\), \(u_{\lambda }\in S_{\lambda }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\) and \(0<\mu <\lambda \), then \(\mu \in \mathcal {L}\) and we can find \(u_{\mu }\in S_{\mu }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\) such that
We can improve the conclusion of this corollary.
Proposition 3.4
If hypotheses \(H_0\), \(H_1\), \(H_2\) and \(H_3\) hold, \(\lambda \in \mathcal {L}\), \(u_{\lambda }\in S_{\lambda }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\) and \(0<\mu <\lambda \), then \(\mu \in \mathcal {L}\) and there exists \(u_{\mu }\in S_{\mu }\subseteq C_+\) such that
Proof
From Corollary 3.3 we already know that \(\mu \in \mathcal {L}\) and that we can find \(u_{\mu }\in S_{\mu }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\) such that
Let \(\varrho =\Vert u_{\lambda }\Vert _{\infty }\), \(J=\{\lambda ,\mu \}\) and consider \(\widehat{\xi }_{\varrho }^J>0\) as postulated by hypothesis \(H_3\), We have
(see (3.15) and hypothesis \(H_3\)), with \(0<m_{\mu }=\min \limits _{\overline{\Omega }}u_{\mu }\) (\(u_{\mu }\in \textrm{int}C_+\)) and \(\eta _{m_{\mu }}\) as in \(H_2(iv)\).
From (3.16) and using Proposition 2.10 of Papageorgiou-Rădulescu-Repovš [17], we obtain that
\(\square \)
Recall that \(\lambda ^*=\sup \mathcal {L}\). Next we show that \(\lambda ^*<+\infty \).
Proposition 3.5
If hypotheses \(H_0\), \(H_1\), \(H_2\) and \(H_3\) hold, then \(\lambda ^*<+\infty \).
Proof
Let \(\eta >\widehat{\lambda }_1\). Hypotheses \(H_1(iii)\) and \(H_2(ii),(iv)\) imply that we can find \(\widetilde{\lambda }>0\) big such that
Let \(\lambda >\widetilde{\lambda }\) and suppose that \(\lambda \in \mathcal {L}\). We can find \(u_{\lambda }\in S_{\lambda }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\). We introduce the Carathéodory function \(\vartheta _{\lambda }(z,x)\) defined by
We set
and consider the \(C^1\)-functional \(\tau _{\lambda }:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) defined by
From (3.18) and (2.1) we see that \(\tau _{\lambda }\) is coercive. Also it is sequentially weakly lower semicontinuous. So, we can find \(\widehat{u}_*\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) such that
As before we choose \(t\in (0,1)\) small so that
Then we have
(recall that \(\Vert \widehat{u}_1\Vert _p=1\)), so
(see (3.19)), thus
From (3.19) we have
so
In (3.20) first we choose \(h=-\widehat{u}_*^-\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) and obtain
(see (3.18)), so
(see (2.1)).
Next in (3.20) we choose \(h=(\widehat{u}_*-u_{\lambda })^+\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\). Then
(see (3.18), (3.17) and recall that \(\lambda >\widetilde{\lambda }\) and \(u_{\lambda }\in S_{\lambda }\)), so
So, we have proved that
From (3.21), (3.18) and (3.20), we infer that
Since \(\widehat{u}_*\geqslant 0\), \(\widehat{u}_*\ne 0\) and \(\eta >\widehat{\lambda }_1\), we have a contradiction. Therefore \(\lambda \in \mathcal {L}\) and so \(\lambda ^*\leqslant \widetilde{\lambda }<+\infty \). \(\square \)
We show that the critical parameter \(\lambda ^*\) is admissible (that is, \(\lambda ^*\in \mathcal {L}\)).
Proposition 3.6
If hypotheses \(H_0\), \(H_1\), \(H_2\) and \(H_3\) hold, then \(\lambda ^*\in \mathcal {L}\).
Proof
In what follows for every \(\lambda >0\) by \(\varphi _{\lambda }:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) we denote the energy functional for problem \((P_{\lambda })\) defined by
We know that \(\varphi _{\lambda }\in C^1(W^{1,p}(\Omega ))\).
Let \(\{\lambda _n\}_{n\in \mathbb {N}}\subseteq \mathcal {L}\) be such that \(\lambda _n\nearrow \lambda ^*\) and \(u_n\in S_{\lambda _n}\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\), \(n\in \mathbb {N}\). According to Proposition 3.2 and its proof, we can have
so
Also we have
We choose \(h=u_n\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\). Then
We add (3.22) and (3.23) and obtain
Claim. The sequence \(\{u_n\}_{n\in \mathbb {N}}\subseteq W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) is bounded.
We argue by contradiction. So, suppose that at least for a subsequence, we have
Let \(y_n=\frac{u_n}{\Vert u_n\Vert }\) for \(n\in \mathbb {N}\). Then \(\Vert y_n\Vert =1\), \(y_n\geqslant 0\) for all \(n\in \mathbb {N}\) and so we may assume that
with \(y\geqslant 0\).
First assume that \(y\ne 0\). Let \(\Omega _+=\{z\in \Omega :\ y(z)>0\}\). If by \(|\cdot |_N\) we denote the Lebesgue measure on \(\mathbb {R}^N\), then \(|\Omega _+|_N>0\) (recall that \(y\geqslant 0\); see (3.25)) and we have
so
(see hypothesis \(H_1(ii)\)), thus
Then hypothesis \(H_2(ii)\) and Fatou’s lemma imply that
Note that
(since \(F\geqslant 0\)), so
(see (3.26)).
On the other hand from hypotheses \(H_1(i),(ii)\) we see that given \(\varepsilon >0\), we can find \(c_8=c_8(\varepsilon )>0\) such that
Therefore we have
Since \(\varepsilon >0\) is arbitrary, we conclude that
From (3.27) and (3.28), we have
Hypothesis \(H_2(iii)\) implies that for all \(\lambda >0\) we have
so
Therefore
for some \(c_9<0\). Comparing (3.29) and (3.31), we have a contradiction.
Next we assume that \(y\equiv 0\). Let \(\eta >0\) and define
We have
(see (3.25) and recall that \(y=0\)), so
(see (2.2) and hypothesis \(H_2(i)\)).
Since \(\Vert u_n\Vert \longrightarrow +\infty \), we can find \(n_0\in \mathbb {N}\) such that
Let \(t_n\in [0,1]\) be such that
We have
(see (3.33), (3.34), (2.1) and recall that \(\Vert y_n\Vert =1\)), so
(see (3.32)). Since \(\eta >0\) is arbitrary, we conclude that
We know that
From (3.35) and (3.36) it follows that
so
(see (3.34)) and thus
(by the chain rule). Hence for \(n\geqslant n_2\) we have
so
and thus
(see (3.24)). Comparing (3.37) and (3.34) we have a contradiction. Therefore the sequence \(\{u_n\}_{n\in \mathbb {N}}\subseteq W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) is bounded. This proves the Claim.
On account of the Claim we may assume that
We have
so
(see (3.38)) and thus
(see Proposition 2.2), with \(u\geqslant 0\).
Using (3.39) in the limit as \(n\rightarrow +\infty \), we have
If we show that \(u_*\ne 0\), then \(u_*\in S_{\lambda ^*}\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\) and so \(\lambda ^*\in \mathcal {L}\). Arguing by contradiction, suppose that \(u_*=0\). Then from (3.40), Proposition 2.10 of Papageorgiou-Rădulescu [14], Theorem 2 of Lieberman [11] and exploiting the compactness of the embedding \(C^{1,\vartheta }(\overline{\Omega })\subseteq C^1(\overline{\Omega })\) (with \(0<\vartheta <1\)), we have that
so
(where \(\delta >0\) is as in hypothesis \(H_1(iii)\)), so
(see (3.20)). Then for \(n\geqslant \widehat{n}\) we consider the Carathéodory function
We set
and consider the \(C^1\)-functional \(\zeta _n:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) defined by
Using the direct method od the calculus of variation and the fact that \(q<p\), we can find \(\widetilde{u}_*\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) such that
so \(\widetilde{u}_*\ne 0\). Then using (3.40) we show that
so
(see Proposition 2.6), thus
and finally
a contradiction. Therefore \(u_*\ne 0\) and so \(u_*\in S_{\lambda ^*}\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\) and so \(\lambda ^*\in \mathcal {L}\). \(\square \)
So, we have proved that
Finally we show that for \(0<\lambda <\lambda ^*\) we have multiplicity of positive solutions.
Proposition 3.7
If hypotheses \(H_0\), \(H_1\), \(H_2\) and \(H_3\) hold and \(0<\lambda <\lambda ^*\), then problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has at least two positive solutions \(u_0,\widehat{u}\in \textrm{int}C_+\), \(u_0\ne \widehat{u}\).
Proof
Let \(0<\mu<\lambda<\eta <\lambda ^*\). According to Corollary 3.3, we can find \(u_{\eta }\in S_{\eta }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\), \(u_{\lambda }\in S_{\lambda }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\), \(u_{\mu }\in S_{\mu }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\) such that
so
(by \(\textrm{int}_{C^1(\overline{\Omega })}[u_{\mu },u_{\eta }]\) we denote the interior in \(C^1(\overline{\Omega })\) of \([u_{\mu },u_{\eta }]\cap C^1(\overline{\Omega })\)). We consider the following truncation of the reaction in problem \((P_{\lambda })\)
This is a Carathéodory function. We set
and consider the \(C^1\)-functional \(\widetilde{\psi }_{\lambda }:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) defined by
Let
(the critical set of \(\widetilde{\psi }_{\lambda }\)).
Claim 1: \(K_{\widetilde{\psi }_{\lambda }}\subseteq [u_{\mu },u_{\eta }]\cap \textrm{int}C_+\).
Let \(u\in K_{\widetilde{\psi }_{\lambda }}\). We have
so
In (3.43) first we choose \(h=(u_{\mu }-u)^+\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\). Then, using (3.42) and the facts that \(\lambda >\mu \), \(f\geqslant 0\) and \(u_{\mu }\in S_{\mu }\), we have
so
Similarly if in (3.43) we choose \(h=(u-u_{\eta })^+\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\), we show that
so
Moreover, the nonlinear regularity theory (see Lieberman [11]) implies that \(u\in C^1(\overline{\Omega })\). Therefore
This proves Claim 1.
Evidently \(u_{\lambda }\in K_{\widetilde{\psi }_{\lambda }}\) (see (3.42)). We may assume that
Otherwise on account of Claim 1 and (3.42), we see that we already have a second positive solution of problem \((P_{\lambda })\) and so we are done.
From (2.1) and (3.42), we see that \(\widetilde{\psi }_{\lambda }\) is coercive. Also it is sequentially weakly lower semicontinuous. So, we can find \(\widetilde{u}_{\lambda }\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) such that
so
and thus
(see (3.44) and (3.41)). We introduce the Carathéodory function \(\widetilde{k}_{\lambda }(z,x)\) defined by
We set
and consider the \(C^1\)-functional \(\widetilde{\varphi }_{\lambda }:W^{1,p}(\Omega )\longrightarrow \mathbb {R}\) defined by
If
then using (3.46) we can check that
Moreover, from (3.42) and (3.46) it is clear that
From (3.45) and (3.48) it follows that
so also
(see Papageorgiou-Rădulescu [14]).
On account of (3.47) we may assume that \(K_{\widetilde{\varphi }_{\lambda }}\) is finite (otherwise we already have an infinity of positive smooth solutions of \((P_{\lambda })\) and so we are done). Then (3.49) and Theorem 5.7.6 of Papageorgiou-Rădulescu-Repovš [19, p. 449], imply that we can find \(\varrho \in (0,1)\) small such that
Also, because of hypothesis \(H_2(ii)\) we have
Claim 2. \(\widetilde{\varphi }_{\lambda }\) satisfies the Cerami condition (see Papageorgiou-Rădulescu-Repovš [19, p. 366]).
We consider a sequence \(\{u_n\}_{n\in \mathbb {N}}\subseteq W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) such that
for some \(c_9>0\), and
From (3.53) we have
with \(\varepsilon _n\rightarrow 0^+\). In (3.54) we choose \(h=-u_n^-\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\). Then
for some \(c_{10}>0\) (see (3.46)), so
(see (2.1)). From (3.52) and (3.55) we have
for some \(c_{11}>0\), so
for some \(c_{12}>0\) (see (3.46)). In (3.54), we choose \(h=u_n^+\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) and obtain
for some \(c_{13}>0\) (see (3.46)).
Adding (3.57) and (3.58) we obtain
for some \(c_{14}>0\). Using (3.59) and arguing as in the Claim of the proof of Proposition 3.6, we show that the sequence \(\{u_n^+\}_{n\in \mathbb {N}}\subseteq W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) is bounded and so
(see (3.55)). Then from (3.60) as in the proof of Proposition 3.6, using the \((S)_+\)-property of A (see Proposition 2.2), we show that at least for a subsequence, we have
so \(\widetilde{\varphi }_{\lambda }\) satisfied the Cerami condition. This proves Claim 2.
Then (3.50), (3.51) and Claim 2 permit the use of the mountain pass theorem. So, we can find \(\widehat{u}_{\lambda }\subseteq W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) such that
(see (3.47)), so
(see (3.50)). We conclude that
(see (3.46)). \(\square \)
So, summarizing we can have the following multiplicity theorem for problem \((P_{\lambda })\) which is global with respect to the parameter \(\lambda >0\) (bifurcation-type theorem).
Theorem 3.8
If hypotheses \(H_0,H_1,H_2,H_3\) hold, then there exists \(\lambda ^*>0\) such that
(a) for all \(\lambda \in (0,\lambda ^*)\) problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has at least two positive solutions \(u_{\lambda },\widehat{u}_{\lambda }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\), \(u_{\lambda }\ne \widehat{u}_{\lambda }\);
(b) for \(\lambda =\lambda ^*\) problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has at least one positive solution \(u_*\in \textrm{int}C_+\);
(c) for all \(\lambda >\lambda ^*\) problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has no positive solutions.
4 Minimal positive solution
In this section we show that for every admissible parameter \(\lambda \in \mathcal {L}=(0,\lambda ^*]\), problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has a smallest positive solution \(u_{\lambda }^*\in \textrm{int}C_+\) (that is, \(u_{\lambda }^*\leqslant u\) for all \(u\in S_{\lambda }\)) and study the monotonicity and continuity properties of the map \(\lambda \longmapsto u_{\lambda }^*\).
From Papageorgiou-Rădulescu-Repovš [15] (see the proof of Proposition 3.5), we know that the set \(S_{\lambda }\) is downward directed (that is, if \(u_1,u_2\in S_{\lambda }\), then we can find \(u\in S_{\lambda }\) such that \(u\leqslant u_1\), \(u\leqslant u_2\)).
Proposition 4.1
If hypotheses \(H_0\), \(H_1\), \(H_2\) and \(H_3\) hold and \(\lambda \in \mathcal {L}=(0,\lambda ^*]\), then problem \((P_{\lambda })\) has a smallest positive solution \(u_{\lambda }^*\in \textrm{int}C_+\).
Proof
Since \(S_{\lambda }\) is downward directed, using Lemma 3.10 of [10, p. 178], we can find a decreasing sequence \(\{u_n\}_{n\in \mathbb {N}}\subseteq S_{\lambda }\) such that
We have
Since \(0\leqslant u_n\leqslant u_1\) for all \(n\in \mathbb {N}\), choosing \(h=u_n\in W^{1,p}(\Omega )\) and using hypotheses \(H_1(i)\) and \(H_2(ii)\), we obtain that
for some \(c_{15}>0\), so
(see (2.1)). From (4.1), we have
Then from (4.2), (4.3) and Proposition 2.10 of [14], we can find \(c_{16}>0\) such that
Invoking Theorem 2 of Lieberman [11], we can find \(\alpha \in (0,1)\) and \(c_{17}>0\) such that
Exploiting the compactness of the embedding \(C^{1,\alpha }(\overline{\Omega })\subseteq C^1(\overline{\Omega })\), we see that at least for a subsequence, we have
As in the proof of Proposition 3.6, using hypothesis \(H_1(iii)\) and Proposition 2.6, we show that \(u_{\lambda }^*\ne 0\).
Passing to the limit as \(n\rightarrow +\infty \) in (4.1) and using (4.5), we conclude that
\(\square \)
We consider the minimal solution map \(\widehat{m}:\mathcal {L}=(0,\lambda ^*]\longrightarrow S_{\lambda }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\) defined by
We say that \(\widehat{m}\) is “strictly increasing”, if
Proposition 4.2
If hypotheses \(H_0\), \(H_1\), \(H_2\) and \(H_3\) hold, then
(a) \(\widehat{m}\) is strictly increasing;
(b) \(\widehat{m}\) is right continuous.
Proof
(a) Let \(0<\mu <\lambda \leqslant \lambda ^*\). According to Corollary 3.3, we can find \(u_{\mu }\in S_{\mu }\subseteq \textrm{int}C_+\), such that
so
(since \(u_{\mu }^*\leqslant u_{\mu }\)) and thus \(\widehat{m}\) is strictly increasing.
(b) Let \(\{\lambda _n\}_{n\in \mathbb {N}}\subseteq \mathcal {L}\) and suppose that \(\lambda _n\nearrow \lambda \) (\(\lambda \in \mathcal {L}\)). As before (see the proof of Proposition 4.1), from the nonlinear regularity theory (see Lieberman [11]), we know that we can find \(\lambda \in (0,1)\) and \(c_{18}>0\) such that
The compactness of the embedding \(C^{1,\alpha }(\overline{\Omega })\subseteq C^1(\overline{\Omega })\) and part (a) imply that
We claim that \(\widetilde{u}^*=u_{\lambda }^*\). If this is not true, then we can find \(z_0\in \overline{\Omega }\) such that
so
(see (4.6)), which contradicts (a) (recall \(\lambda _n<\lambda \) for all \(n\in \mathbb {N}\)). Therefore \(\widehat{m}\) is right continuous. \(\square \)
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Gasiński, L., Papageorgiou, N.S. & Zhang, Y. Positive solutions for a class of nonlinear parametric Robin problems. Rend. Circ. Mat. Palermo, II. Ser 73, 429–454 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12215-023-00918-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12215-023-00918-z
Keywords
- Concave-convex nonlinearities
- Positive solutions
- Truncation
- Nonlinear regularity
- Nonlinear maximum principle
- Minimal positive solution