Completeness properties in L2 of the eigenfunctions of two semi-linear differential operators

This paper concerns the boundary-value problemsin which λ is a real parameter, u is to be a real-valued function in C2[0, 1], and problem (I) is that with the minus sign. (The differential operators are called semi-linear because the non-linearity is only in undifferentiated terms.) If we linearize the equations (for ‘ small’ solutions u) by neglecting , there result the eigenvalues λ = n2π2 (with n = 1,2,…) and corresponding normalized eigenfunctionsand it is well known ((2), p. 186) that the sequence {en} is complete in that it is an orthonormal basis for the real Hilbert space L2(0, 1). We shall be concerned with possible extensions of this result to the non-linear problems (I) and (II), for which non-trivial solutions (λ, u) bifurcate from the trivial solution (λ, 0) at the points {n2π2,0) in the product space × L2(0, 1). (Here denotes the real line.)