Elliptic p-Laplacian systems with nonlinear boundary condition

In this paper we study quasilinear elliptic systems given by−Δp1u1=−|u1|p1−2u1in Ω,−Δp2u2=−|u2|p2−2u2in Ω,|∇u1|p1−2∇u1⋅ν=g1(x,u1,u2)on ∂Ω,|∇u2|p2−2∇u2⋅ν=g2(x,u1,u2)on ∂Ω, where ν(x) is the outer unit normal of Ω at x∈∂Ω, Δpi denotes the pi-Laplacian and gi:∂Ω×R×R→R are Carathéodory functions that satisfy general growth and structure conditions for i=1,2. In the first part we prove the existence of a positive minimal and a negative maximal solution based on an appropriate construction of sub- and supersolution along with a certain behavior of gi near zero related to the first eigenvalue of the pi-Laplacian with Steklov boundary condition. The second part is related to the existence of a third nontrivial solution by imposing a variational structure, that is, (g1,g2)=∇g with a smooth function (s1,s2)↦g(x,s1,s2). By using the variational characterization of the second eigenvalue of the Steklov eigenvalue problem for the pi-Laplacian together with the properties of the related truncated energy functionals, which are in general nonsmooth, we show the existence of a nontrivial solution whose components lie between the components of the positive minimal and the negative maximal solution.