Bilaplacians problems with a sign-changing coefficient

Abstract: We investigate the properties of the operator \Delta(\sigma\Delta.):H^2_0(\Omega)-> H^{-2}(\Omega), where \sigma is a given parameter whose sign can change on the bounded domain \Omega. Here, H^2_0(\Omega) denotes the subspace of H^2(\Omega) made of the functions w such that w=\nu.\nabla w=0 on the boundary. The study of this problem arises when one is interested in some configurations of the Interior Transmission Eigenvalue Problem. We prove that \Delta(\sigma\Delta.):H^2_0(\Omega)-> H^{-2}(\Omega) is a Fredholm operator of index zero as soon as \sigma\in L^{\infty}(\Omega), with \sigma^{-1}\in L^{\infty}(\Omega), is such that \sigma remains uniformly positive (or uniformly negative) in a neighbourhood of the boundary. We also study configurations where \sigma changes sign on the boundary and we prove that Fredholm property can be lost for such situations. In the process, we examine in details the features of a simpler problem where the boundary condition \nu.\nabla v=0 is replaced by \sigma\Delta v=0.