Perturbation of Global Solution Curves for Semilinear Problems

We revisit the question of exact multiplicity of positive solutions for a class of Dirichlet problems for cubic-like nonlinearities, which we studied in 161. Instead of computing the direction of bifurcation as we did in [6], we use an indirect approach, and study the evolution of turning points. We give conditions under which the critical (turning) points continue on smooth curves, which allows us to reduce the problem to the easier case of f (0) = 0. We show that the smallest root of f (u) does not have to be restricted.