On the first eigenvalue of a nonlinear Schrödinger type equation

Abstract

We consider an eigenvalue problem for the generalized nonlinear Schrödinger type operator with the Robin boundary condition as given below. \begin{equation*} \label{ab-Robin p-Laplace evp with potential term_intro} \left\{ \begin{split} -Δ_p u+V(x)|u|^{p-2}u&=λ|u|^{p-2}u\quad &&\mathrm{in} ~Ω,\\ |\nabla u|^{p-2}\frac{\partial u}{\partialη}+β|u|^{p-2}u&=0\quad &&\mathrm{on}~\partialΩ, \end{split} \right. \end{equation*} where ${\Delta }_{p}u:=\mathrm{div}(|\nabla u{|}^{p-2}\nabla u)$ is the $p$-Laplace operator, $\Omega$ is a bounded domain in ${\mathbb{R}}^n$ with smooth boundary, $V\in C^1({\mathbb{R}}^n),$ $\eta$ denotes the outward unit normal, and $\beta$ is a positive real constant. We study the properties of its first eigenvalue with respect to the potential $V$, the boundary parameter $\beta$ as well as the domain. First, we establish some properties of the smallest eigenvalue ${\lambda }_1(V)$ with respect to the potential. We then prove the differentiability of ${\lambda }_1(V)$ with respect to the Robin boundary parameter $\beta$ and give an explicit formula for this derivative, which is then used to investigate some monotonicity properties of ${\lambda }_1(V).$ We also obtain a shape derivative formula for the smallest eigenvalue. Using these derivatives, we also study domain monotonicity properties of the first eigenvalue.