Second radial eigenfunctions to a fractional Dirichlet problem and uniqueness for a semilinear equation

Abstract: We analyze the shape of radial second Dirichlet eigenfunctions of fractional Schr\"odinger type operators of the form $(-\Delta)^s +V$ in the unit ball $B$ in $\mathbb{R}^N$ with a nondecreasing radial potential $V$. Specifically, we show that the eigenspace corresponding to the second radial eigenvalue is simple and spanned by an eigenfunction $u$ which changes sign precisely once in the radial variable and does not have zeroes anywhere else in $B$. Moreover, by a new Hopf type lemma for supersolutions to a class of degenerate mixed boundary value problems, we show that $u$ has a nonvanishing fractional boundary derivative on $\partial B$. We apply this result to prove uniqueness and nondegeneracy of positive ground state solutions to the problem $(-\Delta)^s u+\lambda u=u^p$ on ${B}$, $\; u=0$ on $\mathbb{R}^N\setminus B$. Here $s\in (0,1)$, $\lambda\geq 0$ and $p>1$ is strictly smaller than the critical Sobolev exponent.