Issue |
Wuhan Univ. J. Nat. Sci.
Volume 30, Number 3, June 2025
|
|
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Page(s) | 241 - 252 | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/wujns/2025303241 | |
Published online | 16 July 2025 |
Mathematics
CLC number: O175
∑-Shaped Connected Component of Positive Solutions for One- Dimensional Prescribed Mean Curvature Equation in Minkowski Space
Minkowski 空间中一维给定平均曲率方程正解的∑-型连通分支
College of Mathematics and Statistics, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, Gansu, China
† Corresponding author. E-mail: luyq8610@126.com
Received:
5
December
2024
In this work, we demonstrate that the existence of an ∑-shaped connected component within the set of positive solutions for the one-dimensional prescribed mean curvature equation in Minkowski space with boundary conditions having parameter in two cases
and
by using upper and lower solution method, where
is a parameter,
is monotonically increasing and
,
is a nonincreasing function and
.
摘要
运用上下解方法证明 Minkowski 空间中一维给定平均曲率方程
在 和
两种情形下正解集
型连通分支的存在性,其中,
为参数,
单调递增且满足
,
是单调递减函数且
.
Key words: boundary conditions with parameters / positive solutions / the upper and lower solution method / asymptotic property
关键字 : 边界条件带参数 / 正解 / 上下解定理 / 渐进性质
Cite this article: QI Tiaoyan, LU Yanqiong. ∑-Shaped Connected Component of Positive Solutions for One- Dimensional Prescribed Mean Curvature Equation in Minkowski Space[J]. Wuhan Univ J of Nat Sci, 2025, 30(3): 241-252.
Biography: QI Tiaoyan, female, Master candidate, research direction: difference equations and their applications. E-mail: qity77@126.com
Foundation item: Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (12361040)
© Wuhan University 2025
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
0 Introduction
The boundary value problem in which the boundary conditions involve parameters is one of the most significant problems in the mathematical theory. In 1994, Binding was the first to propose the Sturm Liouville problems with boundary conditions dependent on eigenparameters[1]. In 1999, Hai[2] used the prior estimation method to prove the existence of solutions for boundary value problem
with boundray conditions having parameters. Since then, many different problems with parameters under boundary conditions have been studied respectively by Marinets et al[3], and a great deal of fruitful results have been achieved, which can be found in Refs. [4-7]. Fonseka et al[6-7] investigated the positive solution of the boundary value problem with two boundary conditions having parameters by employing the upper and lower solution method. They proved the existence and multiplicity of the positive solutions and obtained the bifurcation diagram of the above positive solutions by using the time mapping method. Particularly, Fonseka et al[6] discussed the existence and multiplicity results of the steady-state reaction diffusion equation
via the upper and lower solution method in three cases of ,
and
. Further, they established a unique result for
and
. In the above equation,
is a parameter,
is an increasing function which is sublinear at infinity,
is a nonin-creasing function with
and there exist constants
,
such that
for all
, and
is an increasing function such that
.
The prescribed mean curvature equation addressed in this paper is regarded as a significant problem in partial differential equations and possesses extensive applications in other domains like physics and biology, such as the shape of the human cornea[8-9], drops of capillary droopiness[10], micro electronic mechanical systems, and corresponding models of large spatial gradients[11]. Specifically, the Dirichlet problem with the Minkowski-curvature operator
has drawn the attention of numerous scholars. Especially, the existence and multiplicity of positive solutions for the Dirichlet problem with the one-dimensional Minkowski-curvature operator
have been extensively studied by employing the variational method, the upper and lower solution method, and the time mapping method. See Refs. [12-20], where is parameter,
and
. It is obvious that the problems in the above references merely study the positive solutions of the Dirichlet problem with the mean curvature operator in Minkowski space in the case where the nonlinear term has a parameter. However, the prescribed mean curvature boundary value problem where both the nonlinear term and the boundary conditions have parameters must be further considered to accurately describe the corresponding physical phenomena.
Inspired by the above-mentioned papers, we explore the existence and multiplicity of positive solutions for the one-dimensional prescribed mean curvature problem in Minkowski space
with boundary conditions having parameter in two cases and
by using upper and lower solution method, where
is a parameter,
is monotonically increasing and
,
is a nonincreasing function and
.
From the conclusion of Ref. [15], it follows that problem (1) has a positive solution if and only if the problem
has a positive solution, and ,
.
Let is monotone increasing homeomorphism defined by
, then
and
is also monotone increasing homeomorphism and bounded. Let us consider the eigenvalue problem
Based on the results of Ref. [6], the problem (3) has principal eigenvalue , and the eigencurve
is Lipschitz continuous, strictly decreasing and convex. Further
, where
is the principal eigenvalue of
Throughout the paper we will assume that satisfies:
;
for some
.
Let and
. Define
where is the solution of the problem
First, we state the main results for the case: .
Theorem 1 Assume and
hold. Then problem (1) has no positive solution for
and has at least one positive solution for
. Further, if there exist
such that
and
. Then problem (1) has at least three positive solutions for
.
Theorem 2 Assume ,
and
hold. Then problem (1) has least one positive solution
for
such that
.
Next, we state the main results for case: .
Theorem 3 Assume . Then problem (1) as at least one positive solution for
. Further, if there exist
,
and
such that
,
and
. Then (1) has at least three positive solutions for
Note that the connected component of positive solutions of (1) is the shaped under the assumptions of Theorem 1 or Theorem 3. Figure 1(a) illustrated the main results of Theorem 1, Fig.1 (b) illustrated the main results of Theorem 3. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 1, we introduce some lemmas needed to prove the main theorems. In Section 2, we use the time-mapping method to prove that problem
has at least one positive solution when
, which will help to construct the subsolution of
. In Section 3, we give proofs of the main results. In Section 4, we show some examples.
![]() |
Fig. 1 Bifurcation diagram for problem (1) |
1 Preliminaries
Let , it is not hard to verify that
endowed with the norm
is Banach space.
We donote by , and the continuous projects defined by
,
and define the continuous linear operator
,
,
. Integration of both sides of the equation in problem (1) from
to
implies that
i.e.
Applying to the above equation, we get that
. Furthermore, we integrate the above equation from
to
, it follows that
Combining , we obtain that
satisfies
which yields that
Lemma 1 For , there is a unique
such that
and
is continuous.
Proof For any given , define the function
as follows:
There are such that
then there exists such that
.
Next we prove uniqueness of . Let
such that
, hence there exists
such that
Since and
is bijection,
. Finally, from the continuity of
,
and
, we can conclude that
is continuous.
Lemma 2
being a solution to problem (1) is equivalent to
being a fixed point of
Proof It follows from Lemma 1 that there exists a unique such that (7) holds, so the operator equation of problem (1) is
. It is obvious that
, hence its inverse mapping
is a bounded operator, and it follows from (5) that
.
Next, we introduce definitions of a (strict) subsolution and a (strict) supersolution of problem (1) and establish the upper and lower solution theorem that is used to prove existence and multiplicity results of (1).
By a supersolution of the problem (1) we define that satisfies
By a supersolution of the problem (1), we define
that satisfies
By a strict subsolution (supersolution) of (1) we mean a subsolution (supersolution) which is not a solution of (1).
Lemma 3 Let and
such that
. If
and ,
, then
.
Proof Suppose on the contrary that there exists such that
, then
, and there exists a sequence
on
such that
. The fact that
is monotone increasing homeomorphism implies that
.
By the definition of the derivative we get that
This together with (10) and (11) concludes that , which is contradictory. Therefore,
for all
.
Corollary 1 Let such that
.If
for any
, then
.
Lemma 4 Let and
be a subsolution and a supersolution of (1), respectively, such that
, then (1) has a solution
such that
.
Proof Let be the continuous function which is defined by
and define by
. Obviously,
is continuous and bounded.
Next we consider the auxiliary problem
First, the problem (12) has at least one solution by the Schauder fixed theorem. Next, we only show that
,
, so
is a solution of (1).
Suppose on the contrary that there exists such that
>0. Because
, there exist two sequence
and
such that
and
. Without loss of generality, it follows from
that
. By
is an increasing homeomorphism, we get that
.
Moreover, is a subsolution of (1), it yields that
This is a contradiction, thus . In addition, by the similar arguments, it follows that
. Therefore
is a solution of problem (1).
Lemma 5 Let and
be a subsolution and supersolution of (1) respectively such that
. Let
and
be a strict subsoltion and a strict supersolution of (1) respectively satisfying
and
. Then (1) has at least three solutions
,
and
, where
,
and
.
Proof Let denote the the unique positive solution of
Let ,
,
,
. It is not difficult to verify that
endowed with the norm
is Banach space, then
,
and
are non-empty closed convex subsets of Banach space
. In the following, we will prove that
is completely continuous and strongly increasing.
In fact, and
are disjoint subsets of
. The map
is restricted to
. Since
is increasing and
,
are subsolution and supersolution of (1) respectively (
), we have that
, i.e.
. Similarly,
. Since
is a strict supersolution of (2), we have that
. By Ref. [21], Corollary 6.2,
has a maximal fixed point in
and
. Similarly,
has a minimal fixed point in
and
, because
is a strict subsoluton of (1).
Notice that
it follows from Lemma 3 that , hence there exists a constant
such that
. Similarly there exists a constant
such that
. Define
then is open set,
. Hence
has non-empty interior. Let
be the largest open set in
, which contain
such that
has no fixed point in
. Finally by Ref. [22], Lemma 3.8,
has a third fixed point
. Therefore, problem (1) has at least three solutions
,
and
.
2 The Autonomous Case of
,
We consider the quasilinear problem
where is a parameter.
Multiplying the differential equation in (13) by and integrating from
to
, we get that
, where
. From Ref. [8], Lemma 2.3, there exists
such that
. Now we choose
in (13) and yield
Let , further integration from
to
for (14) and integration from
to
for (15), it follows that
We obtain by combining (16) and (17) that
Finally, from boundary value and (15), we can get
Let be a fixed value and
. By (19), it is easy to compute that
further ,
, so it follows from the intermediate value theorem that there exists
such that (19) holds.
Lemma 6 For any fixed ,
for
.
Proof By (19), we get that . It is easy to compute that
Thus , i.e.
.
Definition 1 For any given , we define a map
called the time map of problem (13).
In fact, the existence of a solution to problem (13) is equivalent to the existence of a solution to , see Refs. [19, 23].
Theorem 4 For any given , there exists
satisfying (18) and (19) such that problem (13) has at least one positive solution for any
.
Proof Clearly, for any fixed , there exists
such that
. Now, let
in (21), we show that
It is easy to compute that , and
Therefore, there exist and
, such that
holds. Then problem (13) has at least one positive solution.
Finally, we discuss the range of value of when a positive solution exists for problem (13). The fact together with (18) concludes that
Therefore, .
Next, we show that . From the definition of
, we get that
. Hence, there exists
for any
such that
,
and it follows that
This together with (18) implies that
Therefore, we yield that for small enough as
,
, i.e.
.
In consequence, the problem (13) has at least one positive solution for any .
Remark 1 In the case of ,
, the principal eigenvalue of problem
has eigenvalue , and the corresponding eigenfunction is
,
.
3 The Proof of Main Results
Proof of Theorem 1 We first show the nonexistence for . Let
be the principal eigenvalue and
be the corresponding normalized eigenfunction of
We note that for
and
for
, the detail see Ref. [24]. Supppose on the contrary that
be a positive solution of (1) for
. Note that there exists
such that
for
, and
Clearly, it is easy to see that for
. Thus there exists constant
(independent of
) such that
. Besides, by (23), it follows that
, i.e.
. This is a contradiction, hence (1) has no positive solution for
.
Next, we show that the existence of positive solution of (1) for . Let
, where
is solution of
and . Then
and
.
Since , for all
, there exists
such that
,
. Furthermore, choosing
, we have that
Next, we prove that is an upper solution to problem (1). By
and (24), we conclude that
In addition, we get that and
, thus
is a supersolution.
Let with
, where
is positive solution of (13) according to Theorem 4. Since
,
. Therefore, for any
, there exists
such that
. Hence, for
, we have that
Obviously and
, thus
is a subsolution of (2). Now choosing
to ensure that
. By Lemma 1 there exists a positive solution
for
.
Finally, we establish the multiplicity result of positive solution of (1). Let such that
is strictly increasing on
. We first construct a strict subsolution of the Dirichlet problem
Define satisfying
where is defined such that the function
is strictly increasing on
and
. For
, let
and ,
, where
. By computing, we get that
Assume that there exists a constant such that
, and define
. Since
,
. Define
on
to be the solution of
and extend on
such that
, where
has a maximum value at
and is symmetric about
, see Ref. [17].
Claim
,
.
Based on the claim, it follows that
Since ,
. Therefore,
is a strict subsolution. Now, we prove the claim is true. First, we show that
,
.
Define , then
. Recall that (26). Integration from
to
with
and noting that
, we obtain that
Now we choose . Since
, we can choose
such that
. Hence for all
,
. Clearly,
,
for all
. We obtain that
Since , we have
for all
. By symmetry of the solution of (26),
for all
.
Next, we show that Recall that
,
. Integrating from
to
, we have
Furthermore, . This together with
yields
. Hence
for
. Moreover
is a strict subsolution of problem (1).
Let be the first interation of
, then
be the soluton to the problem
Then . By Corollary 1, we have that
. Hence, it is not difficult to verfy that
is a strict subsolution of (1).
Finally, we construct a strict supersolution for , where
is a constant. Let
, where
is defined by (4). Then
On the other hand, satisifies
and
. Therefore
is a strict supersolution for
. Further, we can choose
and
such that
and
. Since
,
. Therefore (1) has at least three positive solutions from Lemma 5.
Proof of Theorem 2 By , there exists
such that
for
. Let
, where
. It follows that
and
from
,
and
. By the Taylor's series
,
, it concludes that
Therefore, is a supersolution of (1) for
and
. Let
be as in the proof of Theorem 1. Choosing
, we can note that
. By Lemma 2, there exists a positive solution
for
and
such that
.
Proof of Theorem 3 First of all, we show the existence of positive solution for . Clearly,
is a strict subsoluion of (1). Let
be as in the proof of Theorem 1, then is a supersolution of (1). Further, by Lemma 1, there exists
. Next, the proof of multiplicity is similar to that of Theorem 1, we omit it.
4 Examples
Example 1 Let us consider the following problem
where
It is obvious that . Moreover, we note that
satisfies
,
and
. Let
, then
. Let
and
, then we can choose
such that
. Let
be as in (4). It is easy to compute that
,
. Then we obtain that
. Hence
<1. Next, let
. Then
. Therefore, problem (28) has at least three positive solutions for
by Theorem 1.
Example 2 Let us consider the following problem
where
It is obvious that . Moreover, we note that
satisfies
,
and
. The following is similar to Example 1, so we omit it.
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All Figures
![]() |
Fig. 1 Bifurcation diagram for problem (1) |
In the text |
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