Bifurcation points of Hammerstein equations

We apply global bifurcation theorems to systems of nonlinear integral equations of Hammerstein type involving a scalar parameter. To this end, we give sufficient conditions for the continuous dependence, compactness, Fréchet differentiability, and asymptotic linearity of the corresponding operators, which are more general than in the classical setting. These properties are ensured only after passing to some equivalent operator equation which typically contains fractional powers of the linear part. Finally, we show that the abstract hypotheses on the operators correspond to natural hypotheses on the kernel function and the nonlinearity in the Hammerstein equation under consideration.