Multiple positive solutions for a class of Kirchhoff type equations with indefinite nonlinearities

Abstract

Abstract We study the following Kirchhoff type equation: − a + b ∫ R N | ∇ u | 2 d x Δ u + u = k ( x ) | u | p − 2 u + m ( x ) | u | q − 2 u     in     R N , $$\begin{equation*}\begin{array}{ll} -\left(a+b\int\limits_{\mathbb{R}^{N}}|\nabla u|^{2}\mathrm{d}x\right)\Delta u+u =k(x)|u|^{p-2}u+m(x)|u|^{q-2}u~~\text{in}~~\mathbb{R}^{N}, \end{array} \end{equation*}$$ where N=3, a , b > 0 $ a,b \gt 0 $ , 1 < q < 2 < p < min { 4 , 2 ∗ } $ 1 \lt q \lt 2 \lt p \lt \min\{4, 2^{*}\} $ , 2≤=2N/(N − 2), k ∈ C (ℝ N ) is bounded and m ∈ L p/(p−q)(ℝ N ). By imposing some suitable conditions on functions k(x) and m(x), we firstly introduce some novel techniques to recover the compactness of the Sobolev embedding H 1 ( R N ) ↪ L r ( R N ) ( 2 ≤ r < 2 ∗ ) $ H^{1}(\mathbb{R}^{N})\hookrightarrow L^{r}(\mathbb{R}^{N}) (2\leq r \lt 2^{*}) $ ; then the Ekeland variational principle and an innovative constraint method of the Nehari manifold are adopted to get three positive solutions for the above problem.