Supercritical elliptic problems on the round sphere and nodal solutions to the Yamabe problem in projective spaces

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to find sign-changing solutions to supercritical elliptic problems on spheres and related spaces, using isoparametric functions, a double shooting technique, and harmonic morphisms, revealing new solutions with specific geometric properties.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining isoparametric functions and a double shooting method to construct sign-changing solutions in supercritical elliptic problems on spheres and projective spaces.

Findings

Constructed sequences of sign-changing solutions on spheres.

Extended methods to supercritical cases where p > (n+2)/(n-2).

Proved existence and multiplicity of solutions on complex and quaternionic spaces.

Abstract

Given an isoparametric function $f$ on the $n$-dimensional round sphere, we consider functions of the form $u=w\circ f$ to reduce the semilinear elliptic problem \[ -\Delta_{g_0}u+\lambda u=\lambda\ | u\ | ^{p-1}u\qquad\text{ on }\mathbb{S}^n \] with $\lambda>0$ and $1<p$, into a singular ODE in $[0,\pi]$ of the form $w'' + \frac{h(r)}{\sin r} w' + \frac{\lambda}{\ell^2}\ (| w|^{p-1}w - w\ )=0$, where $h$ is an strictly decreasing function having exactly one zero in this interval and $\ell$ is a geometric constant. Using a double shooting method, together with a result for oscillating solutions to this kind of ODE, we obtain a sequence of sign-changing solutions to the first problem which are constant on the isoparametric hypersurfaces associated to $f$ and blowing-up at one or two of the focal submanifolds generating the isoparametric family. Our methods apply also when $p>\frac{n+2}{n-2}$, i.e., in the supercritical case. Moreover, using a reduction via harmonic morphisms, we prove existence and multiplicity of sign-changing solutions to the Yamabe problem on the complex and quaternionic space, having a finite disjoint union of isoparametric hipersurfaces as regular level sets.