Bifurcation for a free boundary problem with surface tension modeling the growth of multi-layer tumors

This paper is devoted to the study of the bifurcation of a free boundary problem modeling the growth of tumors with the effect of surface tension being considered. The existence of infinitely many branches of bifurcation solutions is proved. The method of analysis is based on reducing the problem to an operator equation in certain Hölder space with a nonlinear Fredholm operator of index 0. The desired result then follows from the Crandall–Rabinowitz bifurcation theorem. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved