Abstract
This paper is concerned with the following system
with the Dirichlet boundary condition
Some results are obtained for the existence, multiplicity and nonexistence of positive solutions to the above system by using nonlinear alternative of Leray-Schauder type, Krasnosel’skii’s fixed point theorem in a cone and Leggett-Williams fixed point theorem. In particular, it proves that the above system has N positive solutions under suitable conditions, where N is an arbitrary integer.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agarwal, R.P.: Difference Equations and Inequalities. Marcel Dekker, New York (2000)
Agarwal, R.P., Bohner, M., Wong, P.J.Y.: Eigenvalues and eigenfunctions of discrete conjugate boundary value problems. Comput. Math. Appl. 38, 159–183 (1999)
Agarwal, P.R., Henderson, J.: Positive solutions and nonlinear eigenvalue problems for third-order difference equations. Comput. Math. Appl. 36, 347–355 (1998)
Agarwal, R.P., Wong, F.H.: Existence of positive solutions for higher order difference equations. Appl. Math. Lett. 10, 67–74 (1997)
Agarwal, R.P., Wong, F.H.: Existence of positive solutions for non-positive higher order BVP’s. J. Comput. Appl. Math. 88, 3–14 (1998)
Agarwal, R.P., Wong, P.J.Y.: Advanced Topics in Difference Equations. Kluwer, Dordrecht (1998)
Davis, J.M., Eloe, P.W., Henderson, J.: Triple positive solutions and dependence on high order derivatives. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 237, 710–720 (1999)
Eloe, P.W.: A generalization of concavity for finite differences. Comput. Math. Appl. 35, 109–113 (1998)
Eloe, P.W., Raffoul, Y., Reid, D.T., Yin, K.C.: Positive solutions of nonlinear functional difference equations. Comput. Math. Appl. 42, 639–646 (2001)
Guo, D., Lakshmikantham, V.: Nonlinear problems in Abstract Cones. Academic Press, San Diego (1988)
Hartman, P.: Difference equations: disconjugacy, principal solutions, Green’s functions, complete monotonicity. Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 246, 1–30 (1978)
Henderson, J., Wong, P.J.Y.: On multiple solutions of a system of m discrete boundary value problems. Z. Angew. Math. Mech. 81, 273–279 (2001)
Kong, L.J., Kong, Q.K., Zhang, B.G.: Positive solutions of boundary value problems for third-order functional difference equations. Comput. Math. Appl. 44, 481–489 (2002)
Leggett, R.W., Williams, L.R.: Multiple positive fixed points of nonlinear operators on ordered Banach spaces. Indiana Univ. Math. J. 28, 673–688 (1979)
Li, W.T., Sun, J.P.: Multiple positive solutions of BVPs for third-order discrete difference systems. Appl. Math. Comput. 149, 389–398 (2004)
Shi, Y.M., Chen, S.Z.: Spectral theory of second order vector difference equations. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 239, 195–212 (1999)
Sun, J.P., Li, W.T.: Multiple positive solutions of a discrete difference system. Appl. Math. Comput. 143, 213–227 (2003)
Wong, P.J.Y.: Positive solutions of difference equations with two-point right focal boundary conditions. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 224, 34–58 (1998)
Wong, P.J.Y.: Solutions of constant signs of system of Sturm-Liouville boundary value problems. Math. Comput. Model. 29, 27–38 (1999)
Wong, P.J.Y.: Triple positive solutions of conjugate boundary value problems. Comput. Math. Appl. 40, 537–557 (2000)
Wong, P.J.Y., Agarwal, R.P.: Multiple solutions for a system of (n,p) boundary value problems. Z. Anal. Anwend. 19, 511–528 (2000)
Wong, P.J.Y., Agarwal, R.P.: Further results on fixed-sign solutions for a system of higher-order difference equations. Comput. Math. Appl. 42, 497–514 (2001)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, R. Positive solutions of BVPs for third-order discrete nonlinear difference systems. J. Appl. Math. Comput. 35, 551–575 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12190-010-0378-7
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12190-010-0378-7