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Multiple positive solutions of boundary value problems for fractional order integro-differential equations in a Banach space
Boundary Value Problems volume 2013, Article number: 79 (2013)
Abstract
In this paper, we obtain the existence of multiple positive solutions of a boundary value problem for α-order nonlinear integro-differential equations in a Banach space by means of fixed point index theory of completely continuous operators.
MSC:26A33, 34B15.
1 Introduction
Fractional differential equations (FDEs) have been of great interest for the last three decades [1–11]. It is caused both by the intensive development of the theory of fractional calculus itself and by the applications of such constructions in the modeling of many phenomena in various fields of science and engineering. Indeed, we can find numerous applications in viscoelasticity [12], electrochemistry [13], control, porous media [14], etc. Therefore, the theory of FDEs has been developed very quickly. Many qualitative theories of FDEs have been obtained. Many important results can be found in [15–19] and references cited therein.
In this paper, we shall use the fixed point index theory of completely continuous operators to investigate the multiple positive solutions of a boundary value problem for a class of α order nonlinear integro-differential equations in a Banach space.
Let E be a real Banach space, P be a cone in E and denote the interior points of P. A partial ordering in E is introduced by if and only if . P is said to be normal if there exists a positive constant N such that implies , where θ denotes the zero element of E, and the smallest constant N is called the normal constant of P. P is called solid if is nonempty. If and , we write . If P is solid and , we write . For details on cone theory, see [1].
For the application in the sequel, we first state the following lemmas and definitions which can be found in [1, 10, 20].
Lemma 1.1 Let P be a cone in a real Banach space E, and let Ω be a nonempty bounded open convex subset of P. Suppose that is completely continuous and , where denotes the closure of Ω in P. Then the fixed point index
Lemma 1.2 Let P be a cone in a real Banach space E, and let , where () are nonempty bounded open convex subsets of P and . Suppose that is a strict set contraction and . Then
Lemma 1.3 If is bounded and equicontinuous, then is continuous on I, and set
where , .
Definition 1.1 The fractional integral of order of a function is given by
provided the right-hand side is pointwise defined on .
Definition 1.2 The fractional derivative of order of a function is given by
where , provided the right-hand side is pointwise defined on .
Lemma 1.4 Let , then
for some , , .
In this article, let , . It is easy to see that is a Banach space with the norm
Consider the boundary value problem (BVP) for a fractional nonlinear integro-differential equation of mixed type in E:
where is the standard Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative of order , , (), , and
, , , denotes the set of all nonnegative real numbers.
2 Several lemmas
To establish the existence of multiple positive solutions in of (1), let us list the following assumptions.
() , , , as ().
() There exist and such that
() There exists such that
uniformly for , and
() There exists such that
uniformly for , and
() For any and , is relatively compact in E, where .
() P is normal and solid, and there exist , and such that
and
where , .
() There exist , and such that
and
where , .
Remark 2.1 It is clear that () is satisfied automatically when E is finite dimensional.
Remark 2.2 It is clear that assumption () is weaker than assumption ().
We shall reduce BVP (1) to an integral equation in E. To this end, we first consider the operator A defined by
where .
In our main results, we make use of the following lemmas.
Lemma 2.1 Let assumption () be satisfied, then the operators T and S defined by (2) are bounded linear operators from into , and
Moreover,
Proof Inequalities (4) follow from two simple inequalities:
and (5) is obvious. □
Lemma 2.2 Let assumptions (), () and () be satisfied, then the operator A defined by (3) is a continuous operator from into .
Proof
Let
where λ is defined in the operator A.
By virtue of assumptions () and (), there exists an such that
and
where
It follows from (6) and (7) that for , , we have
Let , we have, by (8) and Lemma 2.1,
which implies the convergence of the infinite integral
and
Thus, we have, by (3), (9) and (10),
It follows from (11) that
Thus, we have .
Finally, we show that A is continuous. Let , (). Then and . By (3), we have
It is clear that
and by (9),
It follows from (15) and (16) and the dominated convergence theorem that
and
It follows from (14), (17) and (18) that (), and the continuity of A is proved. □
Lemma 2.3 Let assumptions (), () and () be satisfied, then is a solution of BVP (1) if and only if is a solution of the following integral equation:
i.e., u is a fixed point of the operator A defined by (3) in .
Proof If is a solution of BVP (1), then by applying Lemma 1.4 we reduce to an equivalent integral equation
for some , , . (20) can be rewritten
By , we have
By , we obtain
Now, substituting (22) and (23) into (21), we see that satisfies integral equation (19).
Conversely, if u is a solution of (19), the direct differentiation of (19) gives
and
Consequently, , and by (19), (24) and (25), it is easy to see that satisfies BVP (1). □
Lemma 2.4 Integral equation (19) can be expressed as
and for any , where
Proof Let . For , one has
,
By simple calculation, we can prove the rest of the lemma. □
Lemma 2.5 Let assumptions (), () and () be satisfied, and let U be a bounded subset of . Then is equicontinuous on any finite subinterval of J, and for any given , there exists such that
uniformly with respect to , as .
Proof For , , by using (3), we have
This, together with (9) and (10), implies that are equicontinuous on any finite subinterval of J.
Now, we are going to prove that for any given , there exists sufficiently large , which satisfies
for all and .
Together with (28), we need only to show that for any given , there exists sufficiently large such that
It follows from (10) that for any given , there exists a sufficiently large such that
and there exists such that
On the other hand, let , , , then we have
Thus, there exists such that for ,
Therefore, from (29), (30) and (31) we have
Consequently, the proof is complete. □
Lemma 2.6 Let assumptions (), () and () be satisfied, and let U be a bounded subset of . Then
Proof By Lemma 2.2, we know AU is a bounded subset of . Thus,
First, we claim that .
In fact, by Lemma 2.5, we know that for any given , there exists a such that
uniformly with respect to and .
Since is equicontinuous on , by Lemma 1.3, we know
where
that is, is the restriction of AU on . Therefore, there exists such that
satisfying
where denote the diameters of bounded subsets of .
At the same time, for any , by (32) and (33), we obtain
It follows from (33) and (34) that
Then, by using , we have
On the other hand, for any given , there exist , , such that
Hence, for , , , we have
Since together with (35), we get
that is,
Because ε is arbitrary, we obtain
Consequently, the proof is complete. □
3 Main results
In this section, we give and prove our main results.
Theorem 3.1 Let ()-() be satisfied. Then BVP (1) has at least two positive solutions such that for .
Proof By Lemma 2.2 and Lemma 2.4, the operator A defined by (3) is continuous from into , and by Lemma 2.3, we need only to show that A has two positive fixed points such that for .
First, we shall prove A is compact.
Let be bounded and (). From (9), we can choose a sufficiently large such that for all
It follows from Lemma 2.5 that
is equicontinuous on . Thus, by (3), (36) and (37), we have
where , , , .
Since for , where , we see that, by virtue of assumption (),
It follows from (38) and (39) that
which implies, by virtue of the arbitrariness of ε, that
Using Lemma 2.6, we have
Thus, we can conclude that AU is relatively compact in , i.e., A is compact.
As in the proof of Lemma 2.2, (12) holds. Choose
where is given in assumption (), and let . Then and, by (12) and (40), we have
By virtue of (), there exists an such that
where
Let
Then, for with , we have by (42)
It follows from (3), (43) and (44) that
which implies
Choose
Let . Then , and we have, by (45) and (46),
Let , and we are going to show that is an open set of . It is clear that we need only to show the following: for any , there exists such that , implies that for . We have for . So, for any , there exists a such that
Since and is continuous on J, we can find an open interval () such that
which implies by virtue of (48) that
Since I is compact, there is a finite collection of such intervals () which cover I, and
where (). Consequently,
where . Since , there exists an such that
whenever satisfying , which implies by virtue of (49) and (50) that
Thus, we have proved that is open in .
On the other hand, Lemma 2.4 and assumption () imply
Hence
Since , and are nonempty bounded convex open subsets of , we see that (41), (47) and (52) imply by virtue of Lemma 1.1 the fixed point indices
On the other hand, for , we have , and so
Consequently,
By (53), (54) and the additivity of the fixed point index (Lemma 1.2), we can obtain
Finally, (53), (54) and (55) imply that A has two fixed points and . We have, by (51), for . The proof is complete. □
Remark 3.1 Assumption () and the continuity of f imply that for . Hence, under the assumptions of the theorem, BVP (1) has the trivial solution besides two positive solutions and .
Theorem 3.2 Let ()-() and () be satisfied. Then BVP (1) has at least one positive solution such that for .
Proof By Lemma 2.2, Lemma 2.4 and the proof of Theorem 3.1, the operator A defined by (3) is completely continuous from into , and by Lemma 2.3, we need only to show that A has one positive fixed point such that for .
As in the proof of Lemma 2.2, (12) holds. Choose R satisfying (40) and let , where is given by assumption (). It is clear that U is a nonempty bounded closed convex subset in ( because ). Let , by (40), we have . On the other hand, as in the proof of Theorem 3.1, Lemma 2.4 and assumption () imply
Hence, , and therefore . Thus, the Schauder fixed point theorem implies that A has a fixed point , and by (56) for . The proof is complete. □
4 Conclusion
In this paper, the issue on the existence of multiple positive solutions of a boundary value problem for α-order nonlinear integro-differential equations in a Banach space has been addressed for the first time. Taking advantage of the fixed point index theory of completely continuous operators, the existence conditions for such boundary value problems have been established.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China under grant No. 11271248 and the Science and Technology Research Program of Zhejiang Province under grant No. 2011C21036.
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RL completed the proof and wrote the initial draft. CK provided the problem and gave some suggestions for amendment. RL then finalized the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Liu, R., Kou, C. & Jin, R. Multiple positive solutions of boundary value problems for fractional order integro-differential equations in a Banach space. Bound Value Probl 2013, 79 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1186/1687-2770-2013-79
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1687-2770-2013-79