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We describe a general framework for studying the question of existence of positive steady states of some nonlinear evolution equations. In particular, we cast the steady state problem in the form of eigenvalue problems for a parametrised family of unbounded linear operators, which are generators of strongly continuous semigroups; and a fixed point problem. In case of irreducible governing semigroups we consider evolution equations with non-monotone nonlinearities of dimension two, and we establish a new fixed point theorem for set-valued maps. In case of reducible governing semigroups we establish results for monotone nonlinearities of any finite dimension $n$. We illustrate our theoretical results with examples of partial differential equations arising in structured population dynamics. In particular, we establish existence of positive steady states of a size-structured juvenile-adult and a structured consumer-resource population model, as well as for a selection-mutation model with distributed recruitment process.
This talk is based on joint work with Angel Calsina (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona). |
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