Uniqueness for linear integro-differential equations in the real line and applications

In this work we prove the uniqueness of solutions to the nonlocal linear equation $$L \varphi - c(x)\varphi = 0$$ L φ - c ( x ) φ = 0 in $$\mathbb {R}$$ R , where L is an elliptic integro-differential operator, in the presence of a positive solution or of an odd solution vanishing only at zero. As an application, we deduce the nondegeneracy of layer solutions (bounded and monotone solutions) to the semilinear problem $$L u = f(u)$$ L u = f ( u ) in $$\mathbb {R}$$ R when the nonlinearity is of Allen–Cahn type. To our knowledge, this is the first work where such uniqueness and nondegeneracy results are proven in the nonlocal framework when the Caffarelli–Silvestre extension technique is not available. Our proofs are based on a nonlocal Liouville-type method developed by Hamel, Ros-Oton, Sire, and Valdinoci for nonlinear problems in dimension two.

Method of Monotone Solutions for Reaction-Diffusion Equations

Existence of solutions of reaction-diffusion systems of equations in unbounded domains is studied by the Leray-Schauder (LS) method based on the topological degree for elliptic operators in unbounded domains and on a priori estimates of solutions in weighted spaces. We identify some reactiondiffusion systems for which there exist two subclasses of solutions separated in the function space, monotone and non-monotone solutions. A priori estimates and existence of solutions are obtained for monotone solutions allowing to prove their existence by the LS method. Various applications of this method are given.