Abstract
In this article, we are pleased to investigate multiple positive solutions for a system of Hadamard fractional differential equations with \((p_{1}, p_{2}, p_{3})\)-Laplacian operator. The main results rely on the standard tools of different fixed point theorems. Finally, we demonstrate the application of the obtained results with the aid of examples.
Similar content being viewed by others
1 Introduction
The majority of the aforesaid analysis on the topic is based upon fractional differential equations and Hadamard fractional derivatives involving many numerous applications in a variety of fields such as control theory, electrical circuits, biology, physics, and finance [1–10]. For example, Arafa et al. [8] proposed a fractional order into a model of HIV-1 infection of CD4+ T-cells dynamics model:
where \(D^{\sigma _{i}}\) (\(i=1,2,3\)) are fractional order derivatives. Jesus et al. [10] studied the fractional electrical impedance of vegetables and fruits by using Bode and polar diagrams. In the modern decades, the results of multiplicity of positive solutions for a system of fractional differential equations which are subject to various levels of boundary conditions have been analyzed extensively by numerous researchers using a variety of methods and techniques [11–18]. Further analysis of positive solutions with p-Laplacian made an extensive contribution to amalgamate the study [19–31]. In the recent past, Hadamard fractional order problems under contrasting different boundary conditions were briefly discussed in the literature [32–36]. Contrarily, many researchers studied the theory of Hadamard fractional order along with p-Laplacian operator [37–40]. Our results were combined to generalize the study from the papers [30, 31]. In [31], Han et al. studied the boundary value problem with fractional differential equation involving the p-Laplacian operator:
where \(0<\alpha \leq 1\), \(2<\beta \leq 3\) are real numbers, \(0\leq \gamma <1\), \(0\leq \xi \leq 1\), \(\lambda >0\) is a parameter, and \(D_{0^{+}}^{\alpha }\), \(D_{0^{+}}^{\beta }\) are the standard Caputo fractional derivatives. Under some assumptions, several new existence and nonexistence results for positive solutions in terms of different values of the parameter λ are obtained.
Inspired by the aforementioned works, here we have amalgamated the system for nonlinear Hadamard fractional differential equations for the existence of multiple positive solutions along with \((p_{1}, p_{2}, p_{3})\)-Laplacian operators:
subject to the two-point boundary conditions
where \(\sigma _{i},\rho _{i},\delta _{i}\in \mathbb {R}\), \(\sigma _{i}\in (2,3]\), \(\rho _{i}\in (0,1]\), \(\delta _{i}\in (1,2]\), \(i=1,2,3\), \(\lambda _{i}\), \(\mu _{i}\), \(i=1,2,3\), are real positive constants, \(\psi _{i}>0\) is a parameter for \(i=1,2,3\), \({}^{H} \mathcal{D}_{1^{+}}^{\dagger }\) denotes the Hadamard fractional derivative of order † for (\(\dagger =\sigma _{i}, \rho _{i}, \delta _{i}\), \(i=1,2,3 \)), \(p_{1}, p_{2}, p_{3}>1\), \(\phi _{p_{i}}(s)=|s|^{p_{i}-2}s\), \(\phi _{p_{i}}^{-1}= \phi _{q_{i}}\), \(\frac{1}{p_{i}}+\frac{1}{q_{i}}=1\), \(i=1,2,3\), and \(f_{i}\in C ([1,e]\times \mathbb {R}_{+}^{3}\rightarrow \mathbb {R}_{+} )\), \(i=1,2,3\). Sufficient conditions for the existence of single and multiple positive solutions are derived by imposing growth conditions \(f_{1}\), \(f_{2}\) and on \(f_{3}\) by applying various fixed point theorems in a cone. By a positive solution of problem (1)–(2), we mean a triplet of functions \((\ss (t),\varpi (t), \omega (t) )\in (C ([1,e], \mathbb {R}_{+} ) )^{3}\), \((\mathbb {R}_{+}=[0,\infty ))\) gratifying (1)–(2) with \(\ss (t),\varpi (t), \omega (t)\geq 0\) for all \(t\in [1,e]\) and \((\ss (t),\varpi (t), \omega (t) )\neq (0,0,0)\).
We assume the following hypotheses:
-
(H1)
The function \(f_{i}: [1,e]\times \mathbb {R}_{+}^{3}\rightarrow \mathbb {R}_{+}\) is continuous.
-
(H2)
\(\mu _{i}, \lambda _{i}>0\), \(\sigma _{i}, \rho _{i}, \delta _{i}\in \mathbb {R}\), \(2<\sigma _{i} \leq 3\), \(0<\rho _{i}\leq 1\), \(1<\delta _{i}\leq 2\), \(\mu _{i}(\delta _{i}-1)> \frac{\lambda _{i}\Gamma {(\sigma _{i}-\delta _{i})}}{\Gamma {(\sigma _{i})}}\), and \(\Lambda _{i}=\lambda _{i}\Gamma {(\sigma _{i}-\delta _{i})}+\mu _{i} \Gamma {(\sigma _{i})}>0\), \(\forall i=1,2,3\).
-
(H3)
\(\mho _{1}\), \(\mho _{2}\), \(\mho _{3}\), \(\aleph _{1}\), \(\aleph _{2}\), \(\aleph _{3}\) are positive constants such that \(\frac{1}{\mho _{1}}+\frac{1}{\mho _{2}}+\frac{1}{\mho _{3}}+ \frac{1}{\aleph _{1}}+\frac{1}{\aleph _{2}}+\frac{1}{\aleph _{3}} \leq 1\).
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In Sect. 2, we provide some preliminaries and theorems to prove our main results. In Sect. 3, we construct the Green function and also give some properties of the Green function which are needed later. Section 4 is devoted to establishing the existence results of at least one or three positive solutions for system (1)–(2). In Sect. 5, as an application, two examples are presented to illustrate our main results.
2 Preliminaries
First, we provide the definitions of Hadamard fractional derivative and Hadamard fractional integral on a finite interval, the details of which can be found in the materials [41–43].
Definition 2.1
The Hadamard derivative of fractional order σ for a function \(u:[1,+\infty )\rightarrow \mathbb {R}\) is defined as
where \(\sigma >0\), \(n=[\sigma ]+1\), and \([\sigma ]\) denotes the largest integer which is less than or equal to σ and \(\log (\cdot )=\log _{e}(\cdot )\).
Definition 2.2
The Hadamard fractional integral of order σ for a function \(u:[1, +\infty )\rightarrow \mathbb {R}\) is defined by
provided the integral exists.
Definition 2.3
Let \(\mathcal{R}\) be a real Banach space. A nonempty closed convex set \(\mathcal{M}\subset \mathcal{R}\) is called a cone if it satisfies the following conditions:
-
(i)
\(\tau \in \mathcal{M}\), \(\ell \geq 0\) implies \(\ell \tau \in \mathcal{M}\);
-
(ii)
\(\tau \in \mathcal{M}\), \(-\tau \in \mathcal{M}\) implies \(\tau =0\).
Every cone \(\mathcal{M}\subset \mathcal{R}\) induces an ordering in \(\mathcal{R}\) given by \(\tau \leq \zeta \) if and only if \(\zeta -\tau \in \mathcal{M}\).
Definition 2.4
Let \(\mathcal{M}\) be a cone in the real Banach space \(\mathcal{R}\). A map \(\chi : \mathcal{M}\rightarrow [0, \infty )\) is said to be a nonnegative continuous concave functional on a cone \(\mathcal{M}\) if χ is continuous and
Definition 2.5
Let \(\mathcal{M}\) be a cone in the real Banach space \(\mathcal{R}\). A map \(\pi : \mathcal{M}\rightarrow [0, \infty )\) is said to be a nonnegative continuous convex functional on a cone \(\mathcal{M}\) if π is continuous and
Property 2.1
([44])
Let \(\mathcal{M}\) be a cone in a real Banach space \(\mathcal{R}\), and let Θ be a bounded open subset of \(\mathcal{R}\) with \(0\in \Theta \). Then continuous functional \(\eta : \mathcal{M}\rightarrow [0, \infty )\) is said to satisfy Property \(K_{1}\) if one of the following conditions holds:
-
(i)
η is convex, \(\eta (0)=0\), \(\eta (\flat )\neq 0\) if \(\flat \neq 0\) and \(\inf_{\flat \in \mathcal{M}\cap \partial \Theta } \eta ( \flat )>0\),
-
(ii)
η is sublinear, \(\eta (0)=0\), \(\eta (\flat )\neq 0\) if \(\flat \neq 0\) and \(\inf_{\flat \in \mathcal{M}\cap \partial \Theta } \eta ( \flat )>0\),
-
(iii)
η is concave and unbounded.
Property 2.2
([44])
Let \(\mathcal{M}\) be a cone in a real Banach space \(\mathcal{R}\), and let Θ be a bounded open subset of \(\mathcal{R}\) with \(0\in \Theta \). Then the continuous functional \(\xi : \mathcal{M}\rightarrow [0, \infty )\) is said to satisfy Property \(K_{2}\) if one of the following conditions holds:
-
(i)
ξ is convex, \(\xi (0)=0\), \(\xi (\flat )\neq 0\) if \(\flat \neq 0\),
-
(ii)
ξ is sublinear, \(\xi (0)=0\), \(\xi (\flat )\neq 0\) if \(\flat \neq 0\),
-
(iii)
\(\xi (\flat +\tau )\geq \xi (\flat )+\xi (\tau )\) for all \(\flat ,\tau \in \mathcal{M}\), \(\xi (0)=0\), \(\xi (\flat )\neq 0\) if \(\flat \neq 0\).
In the proof of our existence results, we shall use the following fixed point theorems of the cone expansion and compression of functional type due to Avery et al. [44] and five functionals fixed point theorem [45].
Theorem 2.1
([44])
Let \(\Theta _{1}\) and \(\Theta _{2}\) be two bounded open sets in a Banach space \(\mathcal{R}\) such that \(0\in \Theta _{1}\) and \(\overline{\Theta _{1}}\subset \Theta _{2}\) in \(\mathcal{R}\). Suppose that \(\mathcal{L}: \mathcal{M}\cap (\overline{\Theta _{2}}\backslash \Theta _{1} )\rightarrow \mathcal{M}\) is a completely continuous operator, η and ξ are nonnegative continuous functionals on \(\mathcal{M}\) and one of the two conditions holds:
-
(i)
η satisfies Property 2.1with \(\eta (\mathcal{L}\flat )\geq \eta (\flat )\) for all \(\flat \in \mathcal{M}\cap \partial \Theta _{1}\), and ξ satisfies Property 2.2with \(\xi (\mathcal{L}\flat )\leq \xi (\flat )\) for all \(\flat \in \mathcal{M}\cap \partial \Theta _{2}\);
-
(ii)
ξ satisfies Property 2.2with \(\xi (\mathcal{L}\flat )\leq \xi (\flat )\) for all \(\flat \in \mathcal{M}\cap \partial \Theta _{1}\) and η satisfies Property 2.1with \(\eta (\mathcal{L} \flat )\geq \eta (\flat )\) for all \(\flat \in \mathcal{M}\cap \partial \Theta _{2}\) is satisfied.
Then \(\mathcal{L}\) has at least one fixed point in \(\mathcal{M}\cap (\overline{\Theta _{2}}\backslash \Theta _{1} )\).
Let ℘, ϱ, ς be nonnegative continuous convex functionals on P and α, β be nonnegative continuous concave functionals on P, then for nonnegative real numbers h, a, b, d, and c, we define the following convex sets:
Theorem 2.2
([45])
Let P be a cone in the real Banach space E. Suppose that α and β are nonnegative continuous concave functionals on P and ℘, ϱ, and ς are nonnegative continuous convex functions on P. Suppose that there exist positive numbers c and M with
Suppose that \(A:\overline{P(\wp ,c)}\rightarrow \overline{P(\wp ,c)}\) is a completely continuous operator, and there exist nonnegative numbers h, a, k, b with \(0< a< b\) such that:
Then A has at least three fixed points \(\flat _{1},\flat _{2},\flat _{3}\in \overline{P(\wp ,c)}\) such that
3 Green function and bounds
In this section, we construct the Green function for the homogeneous two-point boundary value problem
Lemma 3.1
Let \(\Lambda _{1}=\lambda _{1}\Gamma {(\sigma _{1}-\delta _{1})}+\mu _{1} \Gamma {(\sigma _{1})}>0\). If \(x\in [1,e]\), then the Hadamard fractional differential order BVP
subject to the two-point boundary conditions (4), has a unique solution
where
Proof
As argued in [43] the solution of Hadamard fractional order BVPs (5) and (4) can be written as the following equivalent integral equation:
From \(\ss (1)=\ss '(1)=0\), we have \(c_{2}=c_{3}=0\). Furthermore, we can get
From the boundary condition, \(\lambda _{1} \ss (e)+\mu _{1} {}^{H} \mathcal{D}_{1^{+}}^{\delta _{1}} \ss (e)=\psi _{1}\), we obtain
Hence, the unique solution of (5), (4) is
□
Lemma 3.2
Let \(2<\sigma _{1}\leq 3\), \(0<\rho _{1}\leq 1\), and \(y\in C[1,e]\). Then the Hadamard fractional order BVP
has a unique solution
For convenience, let \(b_{1}=\Gamma {(\rho _{1})}^{-1}\).
Proof
In fact, let \(\phi ={}^{H} \mathcal{D}_{1^{+}}^{\sigma _{1}}\ss \), \(\Upsilon =\phi _{p_{1}}( \phi )\). Then the solution of the IVP
By the Lemma 3.1, we can reduce IVP (9) to an equivalent integral equation
From the relation \(\Upsilon (1)=0\), we get \(c_{1}=0\); and consequently
Noting that \({}^{H} \mathcal{D}_{1^{+}}^{\sigma _{1}} \ss =\phi \), \(\phi =\phi _{p_{1}}^{-1}( \Upsilon )\), we have from (10) that the solution of (7) satisfies
By Lemma 3.1, the solution of (11) can be obtained as
since \(y(s)\geq 0\), \(s\in [1,e]\), we have
which implies that boundary value problem (7) has a unique solution
□
Lemma 3.3
([40])
Assume that (H2) holds. Then the function \(\mathcal{G}_{1}(t,s)\) given by (6) satisfies the following inequalities:
-
(i)
\(\mathcal{G}_{1}(t,s)\geq 0\) for all \(t,s\in [1,e]\),
-
(ii)
\(\mathcal{G}_{1}(t,s)\leq \mathcal{G}_{1}(e,s)\) for all \(t,s\in [1,e]\),
-
(iii)
\(\mathcal{G}_{1}(t,s)\geq (\frac{1}{4} )^{\sigma _{1}-1} \mathcal{G}_{1}(e,s)\) for all \(t\in I\), \(s\in (1,e)\), where \(I=[e^{1/4}, e^{3/4}]\).
We can also formulate similar results to Lemmas 3.1–3.3 for the Hadamard fractional boundary value problems
and
where \(\sigma _{j},\rho _{j},\delta _{j}\in \mathbb {R}\), \(\sigma _{j}\in (2,3]\), \(\rho _{j}\in (0,1]\), \(\delta _{j}\in (1,2]\), \(\lambda _{j}, \mu _{j}>0\), \(\psi _{j}\) is a parameter for \(j=2,3\).
We denote by \(\Lambda _{2}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{2}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{21}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{22}\) and \(\Lambda _{3}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{3}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{31}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{32}\) the corresponding constants and Green functions for problem (12)–(13) and problem (14)–(15), respectively, defined in a similar manner as \(\Lambda _{1}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{1}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{11}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{12}\). More precisely, we have
and
The inequalities from Lemma 3.3 for the functions \(\mathcal{G}_{2}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{3}\) are the following: \(\mathcal{G}_{2}(t,s)\leq \mathcal{G}_{2}(e,s)\), \(\mathcal{G}_{3}(t,s) \leq \mathcal{G}_{3}(e,s)\) for all \(t,s \in [1,e]\) and \(\mathcal{G}_{2}(t,s)\geq (\frac{1}{4} )^{\sigma _{2}-1} \mathcal{G}_{2}(e,s)\), \(\mathcal{G}_{3}(t,s)\geq (\frac{1}{4} )^{ \sigma _{3}-1} \mathcal{G}_{3}(e,s)\) for all \(t\in I\), \(s\in (1,e)\).
Remark
Consider the following condition:
where \(m=\min \{ (\frac{1}{4} )^{\sigma _{1}-1}, (\frac{1}{4} )^{\sigma _{2}-1}, (\frac{1}{4} )^{\sigma _{3}-1} \}\).
By using Green’s functions \(\mathcal{G}_{1}\), \(\mathcal{G}_{2}\), and \(\mathcal{G}_{3}\) our problem (1)–(2) can be written equivalently as the following nonlinear system of integral equations:
We consider the Banach space \(\mathcal{R}=\mathcal{T}\times \mathcal{T}\times \mathcal{T}\), where \(\mathcal{T}=\{\ss : \ss \in C[1,e]\}\) equipped with the norm \(\|(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\|_{\mathcal{R}}=\|\ss \|+\|\varpi \|+\| \omega \|\) for \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{R}\), and the norm is defined as \(\|\ss \|=\max_{t\in [1,e]}|\ss (t)|\). We define a cone \(\mathcal{W}\subset \mathcal{R}\) by
where \(I=[e^{1/4}, e^{3/4}]\), \(m=\min \{ (\frac{1}{4} )^{\sigma _{1}-1}, (\frac{1}{4} )^{\sigma _{2}-1}, (\frac{1}{4} )^{\sigma _{3}-1} \}\).
We define now the operators \(\mathcal{L}_{1}, \mathcal{L}_{2}, \mathcal{L}_{3}:\mathcal{W} \rightarrow \mathcal{T}\) and \(\mathcal{L}:\mathcal{W}\rightarrow \mathcal{R}\) by
with
Lemma 3.4
If (H1)–(H2) hold, then \(\mathcal{L}:\mathcal{W}\rightarrow \mathcal{W}\) is a completely continuous operator.
Proof
Let \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\) be an arbitrary element. Clearly, \(\mathcal{L}_{1}(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\geq 0\), \(\mathcal{L}_{2}(\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\geq 0\) and \(\mathcal{L}_{3}(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\geq 0\) for \(t\in [1,e]\). Also, for \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\),
and
Similarly, \(\min_{t\in I}\mathcal{L}_{2}(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )(t)\geq m \|\mathcal{L}_{2}(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\|\) and \(\min_{t\in I}\mathcal{L}_{3}(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )(t)\geq m \|\mathcal{L}_{3}(\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\|\). Therefore
Hence, we get \(\mathcal{L}(\mathcal{W})\subset \mathcal{W}\). By the Arzela–Ascoli theorem, we see that \(\mathcal{L}\) is a completely continuous operator from \(\mathcal{W}\) to \(\mathcal{W}\). □
4 Main results
For computational convenience, we denote
Let us define two continuous functionals η and ξ on the cone \(\mathcal{W}\) by
It is clear that \(\eta (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\leq \xi (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\) for all \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\).
Theorem 4.1
Assume that \((H_{1})\)–\((H_{3})\) hold, suppose that there exist positive real numbers q and Q with \(q< m Q\) and \(0<\psi _{i}< \frac{q \Lambda _{i}}{\aleph _{i}\Gamma {(\sigma _{i}-\delta _{i})}} \leq \frac{Q \Lambda _{i}}{\aleph _{i}\Gamma {(\sigma _{i}-\delta _{i})}} \) such that \(f_{i}\), \(i=1,2,3\), satisfy the following conditions:
- \((F_{1})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\geq \phi _{p_{i}} (\frac{q}{3mA} )\) for all \(t\in I\), \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in [q,Q]\),
- \((F_{2})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\leq \phi _{p_{i}} ( \frac{Q}{\mho _{i}B} )\) for all \(t\in [1,e]\), \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in [1,Q]\).
Then the system of Hadamard fractional order boundary value problem (1)–(2) has at least one positive solution and nondecreasing solution \((\ss ^{\star }, \varpi ^{\star }, \omega ^{\star })\) satisfying \(q\leq \eta (\ss ^{\star }, \varpi ^{\star }, \omega ^{\star })\) with \(\xi (\ss ^{\star }, \varpi ^{\star }, \omega ^{\star })\leq Q\).
Proof
Let \(\Omega _{1}=\{(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega ): \eta (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )< q \}\) and \(\Omega _{2}=\{(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega ): \xi (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )< Q\}\). It is easy to see that \(0\in \Omega _{1}\) and \(\Omega _{1}\), \(\Omega _{2}\) are bounded open subsets of \(\mathcal{T}\). Let \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \Omega _{1}\), we have
Thus \(Q>\frac{q}{m}>\xi (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\) i.e. \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \Omega _{2}\), so \(\Omega _{1}\subseteq \Omega _{2}\).
Claim 1: If \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\cap \partial \Omega _{1}\), then \(\eta (\mathcal{L}(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega ) )\geq \eta (\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\). To see this, let \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\cap \partial \Omega _{1}\), then \(Q=\xi (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\geq (\ss (s)+\varpi (s)+\omega (s) )\geq \eta (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )=q\) for \(s\in I\). It follows from \((F_{1})\) and Lemma 3.3 that
Claim 2: If \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\cap \partial \Omega _{2}\), then \(\xi (\mathcal{L}(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega ) )\leq \xi (\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\). To see this, let \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\cap \partial \Omega _{2}\), then \((\ss (s)+\varpi (s)+\omega (s) )\geq \xi (\ss ,\varpi , \omega )=Q\) for \(s\in [1,e]\). It follows from \((F_{2})\) and Lemma 3.3 that
Clearly, η satisfies Property 2.1(iii) and ξ satisfies Property 2.2(i). Therefore condition (i) of Theorem 2.1 is satisfied and hence \(\mathcal{L}\) has at least one fixed point \((\ss ^{\star },\varpi ^{\star },\omega ^{\star })\in \mathcal{W}\cap (\overline{\Omega _{2}}\backslash \Omega _{1} )\) i.e. the system of Hadamard fractional order boundary value problems (1)–(2) has at least one positive solution and nondecreasing solution \((\ss ^{\star },\varpi ^{\star },\omega ^{\star })\) satisfying \(q\leq \eta (\ss ^{\star },\varpi ^{\star },\omega ^{\star })\) with \(\xi (\ss ^{\star },\varpi ^{\star },\omega ^{\star })\leq Q\). □
Theorem 4.2
Assume that \((H_{1})\)–\((H_{3})\) hold, suppose that there exist positive real numbers q and Q with \(q< Q\) and \(0<\psi _{i}< \frac{q \Lambda _{i}}{\aleph _{i}\Gamma {(\sigma _{i}-\delta _{i})}} \leq \frac{Q \Lambda _{i}}{\aleph _{i}\Gamma {(\sigma _{i}-\delta _{i})}} \) such that \(f_{i}\), \(i=1,2,3\), satisfy the following conditions:
- \((F_{3})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\leq \phi _{p_{i}} ( \frac{q}{\mho _{i}B} )\) for all \(t\in [1,e]\), \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in [1,q]\),
- \((F_{4})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\geq \phi _{p_{i}} (\frac{Q}{3mA} )\) for all \(t\in I\), \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in [q,\frac{Q}{m}]\).
Then the system of Hadamard fractional order boundary value problems (1)–(2) has at least one positive solution and nondecreasing solution \((\ss ^{\star }, \varpi ^{\star }, \omega ^{\star })\) satisfying \(q\leq \xi (\ss ^{\star }, \varpi ^{\star }, \omega ^{\star })\) with \(\eta (\ss ^{\star }, \varpi ^{\star }, \omega ^{\star })\leq Q\).
Proof
Let \(\Omega _{3}=\{(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega ): \xi (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )< q\}\) and \(\Omega _{4}=\{(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega ): \eta (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )< Q \}\). We have \(0\in \Omega _{3}\) and \(\Omega _{3}\subseteq \Omega _{4}\) with \(\Omega _{3}\) and \(\Omega _{4}\) are bounded open subsets of \(\mathcal{T}\).
Claim 1: If \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\cap \partial \Omega _{3}\), then \(\xi (\mathcal{L}(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega ) )\leq \xi (\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\). To see this, let \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\cap \partial \Omega _{3}\), then \((\ss (s)+\varpi (s)+\omega (s) )\leq \xi (\ss ,\varpi , \omega )=q\) for \(s\in [1,e]\). It follows from \((F_{3})\) and Lemma 3.3 that
Claim 2: If \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\cap \partial \Omega _{4}\), then \(\eta (\mathcal{L}(\ss ,\varpi ,\omega ) )\geq \eta (\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\). To see this, let \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\cap \partial \Omega _{4}\), then \(\frac{Q}{m}=\frac{\eta (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )}{m}\geq \xi (\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\geq (\ss (s)+\varpi (s)+\omega (s) )\geq \eta (\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )=Q\) for \(s\in I\). It follows from \((F_{4})\) and Lemma 3.3 that
Clearly, η satisfies Property 2.1(iii) and ξ satisfies Property 2.2(i). Therefore condition (ii) of Theorem 2.1 is satisfied, and hence \(\mathcal{L}\) has at least one fixed point \((\ss ^{\star },\varpi ^{\star },\omega ^{\star })\in \mathcal{W}\cap (\overline{\Omega _{4}}\backslash \Omega _{3} )\) i.e. the system of Hadamard fractional order boundary value problems (1)–(2) has at least one positive solution and nondecreasing solution \((\ss ^{\star },\varpi ^{\star },\omega ^{\star })\) satisfying \(q\leq \xi (\ss ^{\star },\varpi ^{\star },\omega ^{\star })\) with \(\eta (\ss ^{\star },\varpi ^{\star },\omega ^{\star })\leq Q\). □
Theorem 4.3
Assume that \((H_{1})\)–\((H_{3})\) hold, suppose that there exist nonnegative numbers a, b, and c such that \(0< a< b<\frac{b}{m}\leq c\) and \(0<\psi _{i}< \frac{a \Lambda _{i}}{\aleph _{i}\Gamma {(\sigma _{i}-\delta _{i})}} \leq \frac{c \Lambda _{i}}{\aleph _{i}\Gamma {(\sigma _{i}-\delta _{i})}} \) such that \(f_{i}\), \(i=1,2,3\), satisfy the following conditions:
- \((F_{5})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss , \varpi ,\omega )<\phi _{p_{i}} ( \frac{a }{\mho _{i}B} )\) for all \(t\in [1,e]\) and \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in [ma, a]\),
- \((F_{6})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss , \varpi ,\omega )>\phi _{p_{i}} (\frac{b }{3 m A} )\) for all \(t\in I\) and \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in [b, \frac{b}{m}]\),
- \((F_{7})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss , \varpi ,\omega )<\phi _{p_{i}} ( \frac{c }{\mho _{i}B} )\) for all \(t\in [1,e]\) and \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in [0, c]\).
Then the Hadamard fractional order BVP (1)–(2) has at least three positive solutions \((\ss _{1}, \varpi _{1}, \omega _{1})\), \((\ss _{2}, \varpi _{2}, \omega _{2})\), and \((\ss _{3}, \varpi _{3}, \omega _{3})\) such that \(\varrho (\ss _{1}, \varpi _{1}, \omega _{1})< a\), \(b<\alpha (\ss _{2}, \varpi _{2}, \omega _{2})\) and \(a<\varrho (\ss _{3}, \varpi _{3}, \omega _{3})\) with \(\alpha (\ss _{3}, \varpi _{3}, \omega _{3})< b\).
Proof
Define the nonnegative continuous concave functionals α, β and the nonnegative continuous convex functionals ℘, ϱ, ς on \(\mathcal{W}\):
For any \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\), we have
Thus, for each \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}\), \(\alpha (\ss , \varpi , \omega )\leq \varrho (\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\) and \(\|(\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\|_{\mathcal{R}}\leq \frac{1}{m}\wp (\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\). We show that \(\mathcal{L}:\overline{\mathcal{W}(\wp ,c)}\rightarrow \overline{\mathcal{W}(\wp ,c)}\). Let \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in \overline{\mathcal{W}(\wp ,c)}\), then \(0\leq |\ss |+|\varpi |+|\omega |\leq c\). From condition \((F_{7})\) we obtain
Therefore \(\mathcal{L}:\overline{\mathcal{W}(\wp ,c)}\rightarrow \overline{\mathcal{W}(\wp ,c)}\). Now conditions \((F_{5})\) and \((F_{6})\) of Theorem 2.2 are to be verified. It is obvious that
Next, let \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W} (\wp , \varsigma , \alpha , b, \frac{b}{m}, c )\) (or) \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in Q (\wp , \varrho , \alpha , \beta , ma,a,c )\). Then \(b\leq |\ss (t)|+|\varpi (t)|+|\omega (t)|\leq \frac{b}{m}\) and \(ma\leq |\ss (t)|+|\varpi (t)|+|\omega (t)|\leq a\). Now, we apply condition \((F_{6})\) to get
Clearly, by condition \((D1)\), we have
To see that \((D2)\) is satisfied, let \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{W}(\wp , \alpha , b, c)\) with \(\varsigma (\mathcal{L}(\ss , \varpi ,\omega )(t) )> \frac{b}{m}\), we have
Finally, it is shown that \((D4)\) holds. Let \((\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\in \mathcal{L}(\wp , \varrho ,a,c)\) with \(\beta (\mathcal{L}(\ss , \varpi ,\omega ))< m a\). Then we have
It has been proved that all the conditions of Theorem 2.2 are fulfilled. Therefore, the Hadamard fractional order BVP (1)–(2) has at least three positive solutions \((\ss _{1}, \varpi _{1}, \omega _{1})\), \((\ss _{2}, \varpi _{2}, \omega _{2})\), and \((\ss _{3}, \varpi _{3}, \omega _{3})\) such that \(\varrho (\ss _{1}, \varpi _{1}, \omega _{1})< a\), \(b<\alpha (\ss _{2}, \varpi _{2},\omega _{2})\) and \(a<\varrho (\ss _{3}, \varpi _{3}, \omega _{3})\) with \(\alpha (\ss _{3}, \varpi _{3}, \omega _{3})< b\). □
5 Examples
Let \(\sigma _{1}=\frac{5}{2}\), \(\sigma _{2}=\frac{7}{3}\), \(\sigma _{3}= \frac{9}{4}\), \(\rho _{1}=\frac{1}{2}\), \(\rho _{2}=\frac{1}{3}\), \(\rho _{3}= \frac{1}{4}\), \(\delta _{1}=\delta _{2}=\delta _{3}=\frac{3}{2}\), \(\mu _{1}= \mu _{2}=\mu _{3}=8\), and \(\lambda _{1}=\lambda _{2}=\lambda _{3}=3\). Let \(p_{1}=p_{2}=p_{3}=2\), \(q_{1}=q_{2}=q_{3}=2\), \(\phi _{p_{i}}(s)=s\), \(\phi _{q_{i}}(s)=s\), \(i=1,2,3\).
Consider the following system of Hadamard fractional differential equations:
with the boundary conditions
where \(\psi _{1}\), \(\psi _{2}\), \(\psi _{3}\) are parameters. We have \(m=0.125\), \(\Lambda _{1}=13.63472>0\), \(\Lambda _{2}=12.90201>0\), \(\Lambda _{3}=12.74027>0\), so assumption (H2) is satisfied. Besides we deduce
Then we obtain
Similarly, \(\int _{e^{1/4}}^{e^{3/4}} \mathcal{G}_{2}(e,s)\frac{ds}{s}\approx 0.323496\) and \(\int _{e^{1/4}}^{e^{3/4}} \mathcal{G}_{3}(e,s)\frac{ds}{s}\approx 0.338443\).
Example 5.1
We consider the functions
If we choose \(q=2\), \(Q=100\) and \(\frac{1}{\mho _{1}}=\frac{1}{\mho _{2}}=\frac{1}{\mho _{3}}= \frac{1}{\aleph _{1}}=\frac{1}{\aleph _{2}}=\frac{1}{\aleph _{3}}= \frac{1}{8}\), then \(q< m Q\) and \(f_{i}\) (\(i=1,2,3\)) fulfill the following conditions:
- \((F_{1})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\geq 20.19993=\phi _{p_{i}} ( \frac{q}{3mA} )\), \(\text{for } t\in [e^{1/4}, e^{3/4}]\), \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in [2,100]\),
- \((F_{2})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss , \varpi ,\omega )\leq 88.30011=\phi _{p_{i}} ( \frac{Q}{\mho _{i}B} ) \text{for } t\in [1,e]\), \((\ss ,\varpi ,\omega )\in [1,100]\).
Consequently, all presumptions in Theorem 4.1 are agreeable. Thus, for \(\psi _{1}\leq 170.434\), \(\psi _{2}\leq 161.275125\), \(\psi _{3}\leq 159.253375\), the system of (17)–(18) has at least one positive solution.
Example 5.2
We consider the functions
Choosing \(a=5\), \(b=10\), \(c=90\), evidently, \(0< a< b<\frac{b}{m}\leq c\) and \(\frac{1}{\mho _{1}}=\frac{1}{\mho _{2}}=\frac{1}{\mho _{3}}= \frac{1}{\aleph _{1}}=\frac{1}{\aleph _{2}}=\frac{1}{\aleph _{3}}= \frac{1}{8}\) and \(f_{i}\) (\(i=1,2,3\)) fulfill the following conditions:
- \((F_{5})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss , \varpi ,\omega )<4.415005=\phi _{p_{i}} ( \frac{a}{\mho _{i} B} )\) for \(t\in [1,e]\) and \(|\ss |+|\varpi |+|\omega |\in [0.625, 5]\),
- \((F_{6})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss , \varpi ,\omega )>100.9996=\phi _{p_{i}} ( \frac{b}{3 m A} )\) for \(t\in [e^{1/4}, e^{3/4}]\) and \(|\ss |+|\varpi |+|\omega |\in [10, 80]\),
- \((F_{7})\):
-
\(f_{i}(t,\ss , \varpi ,\omega )<79.4701=\phi _{p_{i}} ( \frac{c}{\mho _{i} B} )\) for \(t\in [1,e]\) and \(|\ss |+|\varpi |+|\omega |\in [0, 90]\).
Thus, all the conditions of Theorem 4.3 are fulfilled. Hence, for \(\psi _{1}\leq 153.3906\), \(\psi _{2}\leq 145.14762\), \(\psi _{3}\leq 143.32803\), the system of (17)–(18) has at least three positive solutions.
6 Conclusion
In this study, we are pleased to investigate the multiplicity of positive solutions for the system of three Hadamard fractional two-point boundary value problems with parameters and \((p_{1}, p_{2}, p_{3})\)-Laplacian operators by using the cone expansion and compression of functional type and five functional fixed point theorems for cones in ordered Banach spaces respectively.
Availability of data and materials
Data sharing not applicable to this article.
References
Ge, F.D., Chen, Y.Q., Kou, C.H., Podlubny, I.: On the regional controllability of the sub-diffusion process with Caputo fractional derivative. Fract. Calc. Appl. Anal. 19, 1262–1281 (2016)
Petrás̆, I.: Fractional-Order Nonlinear Systems: Modeling, Analysis and Simulation. Springer, Berlin (2011)
Garra, R., Giusti, A., Mainardi, F., Pagnini, G.: Fractional relaxation with time-varying coefficient. Fract. Calc. Appl. Anal. 17(2), 424–439 (2014)
Wang, T., Wang, G., Yang, X.: On a Hadamard-type fractional turbulent flow model with deviating arguments in a porous medium. Nonlinear Anal., Model. Control 2017(22), 765–784 (2017)
Wang, G., Ren, X., Zhang, L., Ahmad, B.: Explicit iteration and unique positive solution for a Caputo-Hadamard fractional turbulent flow model. IEEE Access 2019(7), 109833–109839 (2019)
Saxena, R.K., Garra, R., Orsingher, E.: Analytical solution of space-time fractional telegraph-type equations involving Hilfer and Hadamard derivatives. Integral Transforms Spec. Funct. 27(1), 30–42 (2016)
Garra, R., Orsingher, E., Polito, F.: A note on Hadamard fractional differential equations with varying coefficients and their applications in probability. Mathematics 6(1), 4 (2018)
Arafa, A.A.M., Rida, S.Z., Khalil, M.: Fractional modeling dynamics of HIV and CD4+ T-cells during primary infection. Nonlinear Biomed. Phys. 6(1), 1–7 (2012)
Ma, Q., Wang, J., Wang, R., Ke, X.: Study on some qualitative properties for solutions of a certain two-dimensional fractional differential system with Hadamard derivative. Appl. Math. Lett. 36, 7–13 (2014)
Jesus, I.S., Machado, J.A.T., Cunha, J.B.: Fractional electrical impedances in botanical elements. J. Vib. Control 14, 1389–1402 (2008)
Henderson, J., Luca, R.: Boundary Value Problems for Systems of Differential, Difference and Fractional Equations: Positive Solutions. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2016)
Henderson, J., Luca, R., Tudorache, A.: Existence and nonexistence of positive solutions for coupled Riemann–Liouville fractional boundary value problems. Discrete Dyn. Nat. Soc. 2016, Article ID 2823971 (2016)
Henderson, J., Luca, R.: Systems of Riemann Liouville fractional equations with multi-point boundary conditions. Appl. Math. Comput. 309, 303–323 (2017)
Luca, R.: Positive solutions for a system of Riemann Liouville fractional differential equations with multi-point fractional boundary conditions. Bound. Value Probl. 2017, 102 (2017)
Ahmad, B., Luca, R.: Existence of solutions for a system of fractional differential equations with coupled nonlocal boundary conditions. Fract. Calc. Appl. Anal. 21(2), 423–441 (2018)
Ahmad, B., Ntouyas, S.K., Alsaedi, A.: On a coupled system of fractional differential equations with coupled nonlocal and integral boundary conditions. Chaos Solitons Fractals 83, 234–241 (2016)
Rao, S.N.: Multiplicity of positive solutions for fractional differential equation with p-Laplacian boundary value problem. Int. J. Differ. Equ. 2016, Article ID 6906049 (2016)
Rao, S.N., Zico, M.M.: Positive solutions for a coupled system of nonlinear semipositone fractional boundary value problems. Int. J. Differ. Equ. 2019, Article ID 2893857 (2019)
Li, D., Liu, Y., Wang, C.: Multiple positive solutions for fractional three-point boundary value problem with p-Laplacian operator. Math. Probl. Eng. 2020, Article ID 2327580 (2020)
Chai, G.: Positive solutions for boundary value problem of fractional differential equation with p-Laplacian operator. Bound. Value Probl. 2012, 18 (2012)
Luca, R.: On a system of fractional boundary value problems with p-Laplacian operator. Dyn. Syst. Appl. 28(3), 691–713 (2019)
Xu, J., O’Regan, D.: Positive solutions for a fractional p-Laplacian boundary value problem. Filomat 31(6), 1549–1558 (2017)
Tian, Y., Bai, Z., Sun, S.: Positive solutions for a boundary value problem of fractional differential equation with p-Laplacian operator. Adv. Differ. Equ. 2019, 349 (2019)
Dong, X., Bai, Z., Zhang, S.: Positive solutions to boundary value problems of p-Laplacian with fractional derivative. Bound. Value Probl. 2017, 5 (2017)
Hao, X., Wang, H., Liu, L., Cui, Y.: Positive solutions for a system of nonlinear fractional nonlocal boundary value problems with parameters and p-Laplacian operator. Bound. Value Probl. 2017, 182 (2017)
Rao, S.N.: Multiple positive solutions for coupled system of p-Laplacian fractional order three-point boundary value problems. Rocky Mt. J. Math. 49(2), 609–626 (2019)
Luca, R.: Positive solutions for a system of fractional differential equations with p-Laplacian operator and multi-point boundary conditions. Nonlinear Anal., Model. Control 23(5), 771–801 (2018)
Wang, Y.: Multiple positive solutions for mixed fractional differential system with p-Laplacian operators. Bound. Value Probl. 2019(1), 144 (2019)
Lv, Z.W., Liu, J., Xu, J.: Multiple positive solutions for a Caputo fractional p-Laplacian boundary value problems. Complexity 2020, Article ID 6723791 (2020)
Kong, L., Piao, D., Wang, L.: Positive solutions for third boundary value problems with p-Laplacian. Results Math. 55, 111–128 (2009)
Han, Z., Lu, H., Sun, S., Yang, D.: Positive solutions to boundary value problems of p-Laplacian fractional differential equations with a parameter in the boundary. Electron. J. Differ. Equ. 2012, 213 (2012)
Zhang, H., Li, Y., Xu, J.: Positive solutions for a system of fractional integral boundary value problems involving Hadamard-type fractional derivatives. Complexity 2019, Article ID 2671539 (2019)
Ding, Y., Jiang, J., O’Regan, D., Xu, J.: Positive solutions for a system of Hadamard-type fractional differential equations with semipositone nonlinearities. Complexity 2020, Article ID 9742418 (2020)
Jiang, J., O’Regan, D., Xu, J., Fu, Z.: Positive solutions for a system of nonlinear Hadamard fractional differential equations involving coupled integral boundary conditions. J. Inequal. Appl. 2019, 204 (2019)
Zhang, K., Wang, J., Ma, W.: Solutions for integral boundary value problems of nonlinear Hadamard fractional differential equations. J. Funct. Spaces 2018, Article ID 2193234 (2018)
Rao, S.N., Msmali, A.H., Singh, M., Ahmadini, A.H.: Existence and uniqueness for a system of Caputo–Hadamard fractional differential equations with multi-point boundary conditions. J. Funct. Spaces 2020, Article ID 8821471 (2020)
Jiang, J., O’Regan, D., Xu, J., Cui, Y.: Positive solutions for a Hadamard fractional p-Laplacian three-point boundary value problem. Mathematics 7(5), 439 (2019)
Xu, J., Jiang, J., O’Regan, D.: Positive solutions for a class of p-Laplacian Hadamard fractional order three point boundary value problems. Mathematics 8(3), 308 (2020)
Alesemi, M.: Solvability for a class of nonlinear Hadamard fractional differential equations with parameters. Bound. Value Probl. 2019, 101 (2019)
Rao, S.N., Singh, M., Meetei, M.Z.: Multiplicity of positive solutions for Hadamard fractional differential equations with p-Laplacian operator. Bound. Value Probl. 43(1), 1–25 (2020)
Miller, K.S., Ross, B.: An Introduction to the Fractional Calculus and Fractional Differential Equations. Wiley, New York (1993)
Podlubny, I.: Fractional Differential Equations. Academic Press, New York (1999)
Kilbas, A.A., Srivastava, H.M., Trujillo, J.J.: Theory and Applications of Fractional Differential Equations. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2006)
Avery, R.I., Henderson, J., O’Regan, D.: Functional compression expansion fixed point theorem. Electron. J. Differ. Equ. 2008, 22 (2008)
Avery, R.I.: A generalization of the Leggett–Williams fixed point theorem. Math. Sci. Res. Hot-Line 3, 9–14 (1999)
Acknowledgements
We are indebted to the most respected Professor K. Rajendra Prasad, and our heartfelt sincere thanks go to the referees for their valuable suggestions and comments.
Authors’ information
Abdullah Ali H. Ahmadini, Department of Mathematics, College of Science, Jazan University, Jazan, Saudi Arabia. email: aahmadini@jazanu.edu.sa
Funding
Not applicable.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
All authors contributed equally and significantly in writing this article. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Additional information
Abbreviations
Not applicable.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
About this article
Cite this article
Rao, S.N., Ahmadini, A.A.H. Multiple positive solutions for a system of \((p_{1}, p_{2}, p_{3})\)-Laplacian Hadamard fractional order BVP with parameters. Adv Differ Equ 2021, 436 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13662-021-03591-7
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/s13662-021-03591-7