Positive solutions of an elliptic Neumann problem with a sublinear indefinite nonlinearity

Abstract: Let $\Omega\subset\mathbb{R}^{N}$ ($N\geq1$) be a bounded and smooth domain and $a:\Omega\rightarrow\mathbb{R}$ be a sign-changing weight satisfying $\int_{\Omega}a<0$. We prove the existence of a positive solution $u_{q}$ for the problem $(P_{a,q})$: $-\Delta u=a(x)u^{q}$ in $\Omega$, $\frac{\partial u}{\partial\nu}=0$ on $\partial\Omega$, if $q_{0}<q\<1$, for some $q_{0}=q_{0}(a)\>0$. In doing so, we improve the existence result previously established in [16]. In addition, we provide the asymptotic behavior of $u_{q}$ as $q\rightarrow1^{-}$. When $\Omega$ is a ball and $a$ is radial, we give some explicit conditions on $q$ and $a$ ensuring the existence of a positive solution of $(P_{a,q})$. We also obtain some properties of the set of $q$'s such that $(P_{a,q})$ admits a solution which is positive on $\overline{\Omega}$. Finally, we present some results on nonnegative solutions having dead cores. Our approach combines bifurcation techniques, a priori bounds and the sub-supersolution method. Several methods and results apply as well to the Dirichlet counterpart of $(P_{a,q})$.