Multiplicity of solutions for semilinear subelliptic Dirichlet problem

Abstract

In this paper, we study the semilinear subelliptic equation \[ \left\{ \begin{array}{cc} -\triangle_{X} u=f(x,u)+g(x,u) & \mbox{in}~\Omega, \\[2mm] u=0\hfill & \mbox{on}~\partial\Omega, \end{array} \right. \] where $\triangle_{X}=-\sum_{i=1}^{m}X_{i}^{*}X_{i}$ is the self-adjoint H\"{o}rmander operator associated with vector fields $X=(X_{1},X_{2},\ldots,X_{m})$ satisfying the H\"{o}rmander condition, $f(x,u)\in C(\overline{\Omega}\times \mathbb{R})$, $g(x,u)$ is a Carath\'{e}odory function on $\Omega\times \mathbb{R}$, and $\Omega$ is an open bounded domain in $\mathbb{R}^n$ with smooth boundary. Combining the perturbation from symmetry method with the approaches involving eigenvalue estimate and Morse index in estimating the min-max values, we obtain two kinds of existence results for multiple weak solutions to the problem above. Furthermore, we discuss the difference between the eigenvalue estimate approach and the Morse index approach in degenerate situations. Compared with the classical elliptic cases, both approaches here have their own strengths in the degenerate cases. This new phenomenon implies the results in general degenerate cases would be quite different from the situations in classical elliptic cases.