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Multiple Positive Solutions for a Class of
-Point Boundary Value Problems on Time Scales
Advances in Difference Equations volume 2009, Article number: 219251 (2009)
Abstract
By constructing an available integral operator and combining Krasnosel'skii-Zabreiko fixed point theorem with properties of Green's function, this paper shows the existence of multiple positive solutions for a class of m-point second-order Sturm-Liouville-like boundary value problems on time scales with polynomial nonlinearity. The results significantly extend and improve many known results for both the continuous case and more general time scales. We illustrate our results by one example, which cannot be handled using the existing results.
1. Introduction
Recently, there have been many papers working on the existence of positive solutions to boundary value problems for differential equations on time scales; see, for example, [1–20]. This has been mainly due to its unification of the theory of differential and difference equations. An introduction to this unification is given in [11, 12, 18, 19]. Now, this study is still a new area of fairly theoretical exploration in mathematics. However, it has led to several important applications, for example, in the study of insect population models, neural networks, heat transfer, and epidemic models; see, for example, [10, 11]. For some other excellent results and applications of the case that boundary value problems on time scales to a variety of problems from Khan et al. [21], Agarose et al. [22], Wang [23], Sun [24], Feng et al. [25], Feng et al. [26] and Feng et al. [27].
Motivated by the works mentioned above, we intend in this paper to study the existence of multiple positive solutions for the second-order m-point nonlinear dynamic equation on time scales with polynomial nonlinearity:

where is a time scale,

the points for
with
;


Recently, Xu [28] considered the following second-order two-point impulsive singular differential equations boundary value problem:

By means of fixed point index theory in a cone, the author established the existence of two nonnegative solutions for problem (1.5).
More recently, by applying Guo-Krasnosel'skii fixed point theorem in a cone, Anderson and Ma [6] established the existence of at least one positive solution to the multipoint time-scale eigenvalue problem:

where is continuous.
As far as we know, there is no paper to study the existence of multiple positive solutions to problem (1.1) on time scales with polynomial nonlinearity. The objective of the present paper is to fill this gap. On the other hand, many difficulties occur when we study BVPs on time scales. For example, basic tools from calculus such as Fermat's theorem, Rolle's theorem and the intermediate value theorem may not necessarily hold. So it is interesting and important to discuss the problem (1.1). The purpose of this paper is to prove that the problem (1.1) possesses at least two positive solutions. Moreover, the methods used in this paper are different from [6, 28] and the results obtained in this paper generalize some results in [6, 28] to some degree.
The time scale related notations adopted in this paper can be found, if not explained specifically, in almost all literature related to time scales. The readers who are unfamiliar with this area can consult for example [11, 12, 18, 19] for details.
For convenience, we list the following well-known definitions.
Definition 1.1.
A time scale is a nonempty closed subset of
.
Definition 1.2.
Define the forward (backward) jump operator at
for
at
for
by
for all
.
We assume throughout that has the topology that it inherits from the standard topology on
and say
is right-scattered, left-scattered, right-dense and left-dense if
and
, respectively. Finally, we introduce the sets
and
. which are derived from the time scale
as follows. If
has a left-scattered maximum
, then
, otherwise
. If
has a right-scattered minimum
, then
,
.
Definition 1.3.
Fix and let
. Define
to be the number (if it exists) with the property that given
there is a neighborhood
of
with

for all , where
denotes the (delta) derivative of
with respect to the first variable, then

implies

Definition 1.4.
. Define
to be the number (if it exists) with the property that given
there is a neighborhood
of
with

for all . Call
the nabla derivative of
at the point
.
If then
. If
then
is the forward difference operator while
is the backward difference operator.
Definition 1.5.
A function is called rd-continuous provided it is continuous at all right dense points of
and its left sided limit exists (finite) at left dense
. We let
denote the set of rd-continuous functions
.
Definition 1.6.
is called ld-continuous provided it is continuous at all left
and its right sided limit exists (finite) at right dense
. We let
denote the set of ld-continuous
.
Definition 1.7.
A function is called a delta-antiderivative of
provided
holds for all
. In this case we define the delta integral of
by

for all .
Definition 1.8.
is called a nabla-antiderivative of
provided
holds for all
. In this case we define the nabla integral of f by

for all .
2. Preliminaries
In this section, we provide some necessary background. In particular, we state some properties of Green's function associated with problem (1.1), and we then state a fixed-point theorem which is crucial to prove our main results.
The basic space used in this paper is . It is well known that
is a Banach space with the norm
defined by
. Let
be a cone of
,
, where
.
In this paper, the Green's function of the corresponding homogeneous BVP is defined by

where

and and
satisfy

respectively.
Lemma 2.1 (see [6]).
Assume that (1.2) and (1.3) hold. Then and the functions
and
satisfy

From Lemma 2.1 and the definition of , we can prove that
has the following properties.
Proposition 2.2.
For , one has

where
In fact, from Lemma 2.1, we have for
Therefore (2.5) holds.
Proposition 2.3.
If (1.2) holds, then for , one has

Proof.
In fact, from Lemma 2.1, we obtain for
So
.
On the other hand, from Lemma 2.1, we know that for
. This together with
implies that
for
. Hence
is nondecreasing on
,
is nonincreasing on
. So (2.6) holds.
Proposition 2.4.
For all one has

where

Proof.
In fact, for , we have

Therefore (2.7) holds.
It is easy to see that , for
. Thus, there exists
such that
for
, where

We remark that Proposition 2.2 implies that there exists such that for

Set

Lemma 2.5 (see [6]).
Assume that (1.2) and (1.3) hold. If and
, then the nonhomogeneous boundary value problem

has a unique solution for which the formula

holds, where


By similar method, one can define

The following lemma is crucial to prove our main results.
Let and
be two bounded open sets in a real Banach space
, such that
and
. Let the operator
be completely continuous, where
is a cone in
. Suppose that one of the two conditions

or

is satisfied. Then has at least one fixed point in
.
3. Main Results
In this section, we apply Lemma 2.6 to establish the existence of at least two positive solutions for BVP (1.1).
The following assumptions will stand throughout this paper.
(H1)There exist such that

where and
are defined in (1.4), respectively.
(H2)We have

for and
given in (2.2) and (2.12), respectively.
If holds, then we can show that
have the following properties.
Proposition 3.1.
If (1.2)–(1.4) and hold, then from (2.15), for
, one has

where
Proof.
Let

Then from (1.2)–(1.4) and , we obtain
Therefore,
On the other hand, since

we have So one has

This and imply (3.3) holds.
Proposition 3.2.
If (1.2)–(1.4) and hold, then from (2.16),
, one has

Proof.
The proof is similar to that of Proposition 3.1. So we omit it.
For the sake of applying fixed point theorem on cone, we construct a cone in by

where is defined in (2.10).
Define by

By (2.14), it is well known that the problem (1.1) has a positive solution if and only if
is a fixed point of
.
Lemma 3.3.
Suppose that (1.2)–(1.4) and -
hold. Then
and
is completely continuous.
Proof.
For by (2.14), we have
and

On the other hand, for , by (3.9),(3.10) and (2.7), we obtain

Therefore , that is,
.
Next by standard methods and the Ascoli-Arzela theorem one can prove that is completely continuous. So it is omitted.
Theorem 3.4.
Suppose that (1.2)–(1.4) and -
hold. Then problem (1.1) has at least two positive solutions provided

where and
are defined in (3.3), (3.7) and in Proposition 3.1, respectively.
Proof.
Let be the cone preserving, completely continuous operator that was defined by (3.9).
Let , where
. Choosing
and
satisfy

Now we prove that


In fact, if there exists such that
, then for
, we have

where defined by (2.17).
Therefore , that is,
, which is a contradiction. Hence (3.14) holds.
Next, turning to (3.15). If there exists such that
, then for
, we have

where are defined by (2.17).
Therefore , that is,
, which is a contradiction. Hence (3.15) holds.
It remains to prove

In fact, if there exists such that
, then for
, we have

that is,

which is a contradiction, where are defined by (2.17). Hence (3.18) holds. From Lemma 2.6, (3.14), (3.15) and (3.18) yield that the problem (1.1) has at least two solutions
and
. The proof is complete.
4. Example
Example 4.1.
To illustrate how our main results can be used in practice we present an example.
Let . Take
in (1.1). Now we consider the following three point boundary value problem

where

It is not difficult to see that

On the other hand, by calculating we have ,

and
Let . Then
and

It follows that and
hold.
Finally, we prove that

In fact, from , we have
and

Therefore, the conditions of Theorem 3.4 hold. Hence problem (4.1) has at least two positive solutions.
Remark 4.2.
Example 4.1 implies that there is a large number of functions that satisfy the conditions of Theorem 3.4. In addition, the conditions of Theorem 3.4 are also easy to check.
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Acknowledgments
This work is sponsored by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10671012) and the Scientific Creative Platform Foundation of Beijing Municipal Commission of Education (PXM2008-014224-067420). The authors thank the referee for his careful reading of the manuscript and useful suggestions.
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Feng, M., Zhang, X. & Ge, W. Multiple Positive Solutions for a Class of -Point Boundary Value Problems on Time Scales.
Adv Differ Equ 2009, 219251 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1155/2009/219251
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1155/2009/219251
Keywords
- Fixed Point Theorem
- Epidemic Model
- Real Banach Space
- Point Index
- Equation Boundary