Ober Ein Rayleigh-Ritz-Verfahren zur Bestimmung Kritischer Werte

This paper is concerned with the existence of critical points for a functional f defined on the level set of a second functional g. Existence of nontrivial solutions for the nonlinear eigenvalue-problem f′(u) = λg′(u) and convergence for a nonlinear analogue to the Rayleigh-Ritz-Method is proven. The results are applied to a nonlinear ordinary eigenvalue problem where it is shown that the lowest point in the continuous spectrum of the associated linearized operator is a bifurcation point of infinite multiplicity.