Topological Degree Methods In Nonlinear Boundary Value Problems

This volume contains expository lectures from the CBMS Regional Conference held at Harvey Mudd College, June 1977. The conference was supported by the National Science Foundation. The main theme of this monograph consists of applications to nonlinear differential equations of the author's coincidental degree. It includes an extensive bibliography covering many aspects of the modern theory of nonlinear differential equations and the theory of nonlinear analysis.

This book focuses on nonlinear boundary value problems and the aspects of nonlinear analysis which are necessary to their study. The authors first give a comprehensive introduction to the many different classical methods from nonlinear analysis, variational principles, and Morse theory. They then provide a rigorous and detailed treatment of the relevant areas of nonlinear analysis with new applications to nonlinear boundary value problems for both ordinary and partial differential equations. Recent results on the existence and multiplicity of critical points for both smooth and nonsmooth functional, developments on the degree theory of monotone type operators, nonlinear maximum and comparison principles for p-Laplacian type operators, and new developments on nonlinear Neumann problems involving non-homogeneous differential operators appear for the first time in book form. The presentation is systematic, and an extensive bibliography and a remarks section at the end of each chapter highlight the text. This work will serve as an invaluable reference for researchers working in nonlinear analysis and partial differential equations as well as a useful tool for all those interested in the topics presented.

In the rapidly developing area of nonlinear theory of differential equations, many important results have been obtained by the use of nonlinear functional analysis based on topological and variational methods. The survey papers presented in this volume represent the current state of the art in the subject. The methods outlined in this book can be used to obtain new results concerning the existence, uniqueness, multiplicity, and bifurcation of the solutions of nonlinear boundary value problems for ordinary and partial differential equations. The contributions to this volume are from well known mathematicians, and every paper contained in this book can serve both as a source of reference for researchers working in differential equations and as a starting point for those wishing to pursue research in this direction. With research reports in the field typically scattered in many papers within various journals, this book provides the reader with recent results in an accessible form.

The volume contains the texts of four courses, given by the authors at a summer school that sought to present the state of the art in the growing field of topological methods in the theory of o.d.e. (in finite and infinitedimension), and to provide a forum for discussion of the wide variety of mathematical tools which are involved. The topics covered range from the extensions of the Lefschetz fixed point and the fixed point index on ANR's, to the theory of parity of one-parameter families of Fredholm operators, and from the theory of coincidence degree for mappings on Banach spaces to homotopy methods for continuation principles. CONTENTS: P. Fitzpatrick: The parity as an invariant for detecting bifurcation of the zeroes of one parameter families of nonlinear Fredholm maps.- M. Martelli: Continuation principles and boundary value problems.- J. Mawhin: Topological degree and boundary value problems for nonlinear differential equations.- R.D. Nussbaum: The fixed point index and fixed point theorems.

This graduate-level textbook presents representative problems in nonlinear analysis by topological methods. The approach is elementary with simple model equations and applications, allowing students to focus on the application of topological methods.

A book on an advanced level that exposes the reader to the fascinating field of differential equations and provides a ready access to an up-to-date state of this art is of immense value. This book presents a variety of techniques that are employed in the theory of nonlinear boundary value problems. For example, the following are discussed: methods that involve differential inequalities; shooting and angular function techniques; functional analytic approaches; topological methods.