Some remarks on patterns for semilinear Neumann problems

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Calanchi, Marta, Ciraolo, Giulio, Messina, Francesca
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Calanchi, Marta
Ciraolo, Giulio
Messina, Francesca
author_facet Calanchi, Marta
Ciraolo, Giulio
Messina, Francesca
contents We study semilinear elliptic equations \begin{equation*} \begin{cases} -Δu = f(u) & \text{in } Ω, \\ \partial_νu = 0 & \text{on } \partialΩ, \end{cases} \end{equation*} with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions in bounded domains. A classical result by Casten-Holland and Matano shows that stable nonconstant solutions cannot exist in convex domains, although unstable spatial patterns may still occur. In this paper we investigate rigidity properties of classical solutions without imposing stability assumptions and aim to identify structural conditions on the nonlinearity ensuring that all solutions are constant. We prove that every classical solution of the Neumann problem is constant provided the nonlinearity satisfies a suitable `monotonicity' condition, which includes the cases where the nonlinearity has a fixed sign or changes sign in a controlled way around one of its zeros. This yields a rigidity result depending solely on the structure of the nonlinearity and does not require convexity assumptions on the domain. We also discuss the sharpness of our assumptions by constructing examples of nonlinearities for which nonconstant solutions exist. In particular, inspired by the approach of Lin-Ni-Takagi, we consider exponential-type nonlinearities in dimension $N=2$, and show that when a parameter crosses a critical threshold, the associated Neumann problem admits nontrivial and nonconstant solutions for sufficiently small diffusion.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_24760
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Some remarks on patterns for semilinear Neumann problems
Calanchi, Marta
Ciraolo, Giulio
Messina, Francesca
Analysis of PDEs
We study semilinear elliptic equations \begin{equation*} \begin{cases} -Δu = f(u) & \text{in } Ω, \\ \partial_νu = 0 & \text{on } \partialΩ, \end{cases} \end{equation*} with homogeneous Neumann boundary conditions in bounded domains. A classical result by Casten-Holland and Matano shows that stable nonconstant solutions cannot exist in convex domains, although unstable spatial patterns may still occur. In this paper we investigate rigidity properties of classical solutions without imposing stability assumptions and aim to identify structural conditions on the nonlinearity ensuring that all solutions are constant. We prove that every classical solution of the Neumann problem is constant provided the nonlinearity satisfies a suitable `monotonicity' condition, which includes the cases where the nonlinearity has a fixed sign or changes sign in a controlled way around one of its zeros. This yields a rigidity result depending solely on the structure of the nonlinearity and does not require convexity assumptions on the domain. We also discuss the sharpness of our assumptions by constructing examples of nonlinearities for which nonconstant solutions exist. In particular, inspired by the approach of Lin-Ni-Takagi, we consider exponential-type nonlinearities in dimension $N=2$, and show that when a parameter crosses a critical threshold, the associated Neumann problem admits nontrivial and nonconstant solutions for sufficiently small diffusion.
title Some remarks on patterns for semilinear Neumann problems
topic Analysis of PDEs
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.24760