Bifurcation and multiplicity results for nonlinear elliptic problems involving critical Sobolev exponents

Abstract In this paper we study the existence of nontrivial solutions for the boundary value problem { − Δ u − λ u − u | u | 2 ⁎ − 2 = 0 in Ω u = 0 on ∂ Ω when Ω⊂Rn is a bounded domain, n ⩾ 3, 2 ⁎ = 2 n ( n − 2 ) is the critical exponent for the Sobolev embedding H 0 1 ( Ω ) ⊂ L p ( Ω ) , λ is a real parameter. We prove that there is bifurcation from any eigenvalue λj of − Δ and we give an estimate of the left neighbourhoods ] λ j ⁎ , λj] of λj, j∈N, in which the bifurcation branch can be extended. Moreover we prove that, if λ ∈ ] λ j ⁎ , λj[, the number of nontrivial solutions is at least twice the multiplicity of λj. The same kind of results holds also when Ω is a compact Riemannian manif…