Proof of the Bonheure-Noris-Weth conjecture on oscillatory radial solutions of Neumann problems

Abstract

Let $B_1$ be the unit ball in $\mathbb{R}^N$ with $N \geq 2$. Let $f\in C^1([0, \infty), \mathbb{R})$, $f(0)=0$, $f(\beta) = \beta, \ f(s) s\ \text{for}\ s\in (\beta, \infty)$ and $f'(\beta)>\lambda^{r}_k$. D. Bonheure, B. Noris and T. Weth [Ann. Inst. H. Poincar\'e Anal. Non Lin\'eaire 29(4) (2012)] proved the existence of nondecreasing, radial positive solutions of the semilinear Neumann problem $$ -\Delta u+u=f(u) \ \text{in}\ B_1,\ \ \ \ \partial_\nu u=0 \ \text{on}\ \partial B_1 $$ for $k=2$, and they conjectured that there exists a radial solution with $k$ intersections with $\beta$ provided that $f'(\beta) >\lambda^r_k$ for $k>2$. In this paper, we show that the answer is yes.