Maximum and anti-maximum principlesand eigenfunctions estimates via perturbation theory of positive solutions of elliptic equations

In this paper we discuss some new results concerning perturbation theory for second order elliptic partial differential equations related to positivity properties of such equations. We continue the study of some different notions of “small” perturbations and discuss their relations to comparisons of Green's functions, refined maximum and anti-maximum principles, ground state, and the decay of eigenfunctions. In particular, we show that if V is a positive function which is a semismall perturbation of a subcritical Schr?dinger operator H defined on a domain , and are the (Dirichlet) eigenfunctions of the equation , then for any , the function is bounded and has a continuous extension up to the Martin boundary of the pair , where is the ground state of H with a principal eigenvalue . Received: 29 November 1998