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A NOTE ON THE BOUNDEDNESS OF AN INTEGRODIFFERENTIAL EQUATION

Juan Napoles Valdes

Universidad de la Cuenca del Plata, Corrientes, Argentina,Universidad Tecnologica

Nacional, Chaco, Argentina
Published online: 18 Oct 2010.

To cite this article: Juan Napoles Valdes (2001) A NOTE ON THE BOUNDEDNESS OF AN INTEGRO-DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION,
Quaestiones Mathematicae, 24:2, 213-216, DOI: 10.1080/16073606.2001.9639209
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16073606.2001.9639209

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Quaestiones Mathematicae 24(2001), 213216.

c 2001 NISC Pty Ltd, www.nisc.co.za

A NOTE ON THE BOUNDEDNESS OF AN

INTEGRO-DIFFERENTIAL EQUATION
poles Valde
s
Juan E. Na

Downloaded by [Queensland University of Technology] at 23:46 21 November 2014

Universidad de la Cuenca del Plata, Lavalle 50, (3400) Corrientes, Argentina and
Universidad Tecnol
ogica Nacional, French 414, (3500) Resistencia, Chaco, Argentina.
E-Mail cuencadelplata@arnet.com.ar and napoles33@latinmail.com
Abstract. In this paper we study the prolongability and certain properties of the
integro-differential equation
Z t
(1)
x00 + a(t)f (t, x, x0 )x0 + g(t, x0 ) + h(x) =
C(t, s)x0 (s)ds.
0

Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): Primary 45J05; Secondary 45MXX.

Key words: Boundedness, Lyapunov functionals.

1.
(2)

We consider the integro-differential scalar equation:

Z t
x00 + a(t)f (t, x, x0 )x0 + g(t, x0 ) + h(x) =
C(t, s)x0 (s)ds,

Introduction.

in which a is a positive continuous function on I, with I := [0, ) , f is a continuous

function satisfying f (t, x, x0 )0 for (t, x, x0 ) I R2 , g and h are also continuous
functions such that g(t, y)y > 0 for y6=0 and xh(x) > 0 for x 6= 0 and C(s, t) is
continuous for 0 s t < . Here the functions indicated above are all scalar
functions.
To study the asymptotic behaviour of solutions of (1), the essential idea has
been to construct a nice Lyapunov functional or a Lyapunov function. In general,
it is often difficult to construct nice Lyapunov functionals for a given equation,
although recently many Lyapunov functionals are constructed experimentally.
The purpose of this note is to give conditions to insure that all solutions of (1)
are bounded (global existence), via the construction of Lyapunovs functionals for
this equation. We will also give a result for stability and L2 [0, )-stability of the
solutions of equation (1). The approach utilized turns out to be very fruitful and
has led to several interesting results.
Evidently, (1) can be regarded as a perturbed version of the equation:
(3)

x00 + a(t)f (t, x, x0 )x0 + g(t, x0 ) + h(x) = 0,

and therefore, any qualitative property for (1) is interesting.

213

 poles Valde
s
J.E. Na

214

The definitions used here, are natural extensions of stability definitions for
ordinary differential equations, they have been used in integro-differential equations
as well as in delay-differential equations; see Driver [3], Miller [6] and Yoshizawa
[8].
2. Results. As the problem of continuability of solutions is of paramount importance in the qualitative theory, it has received a considerable amount of attention in the last three decades. So, we now state our first result related to
continuability (global existence) of the solutions of equation (2).
Making y = x0 in (2) we obtain:

(4)

x0 = y,
Z t
y0 =
C(t, s)y(s)ds a(t)f (t, x, y)y g(t, y) h(x).

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The system (4) is equivalent to equation (2) and therefore any result for (4) is also
a result for (2).
Researchers from the early 1950s to the present day have studied stability
properties of integro-differential equations by using Lyapunovs functionals denoted
by V (t, x(t), y(t)) (see [8]).
Let
Z tZ
y 2 (t)
+ H(x) +
(5)
V (t, x(t), y(t)) =
|C(u, s)| duy 2 (s)ds,
2
0
t
Rx
where H(x) is defined as H(x) = 0 h(s)ds. The functional V (t, x, y) plays a
central role in the derivation of the results in this section.
Theorem. Under the following assumptions:
Rt
R
i) there exists a constant R0 such that 0 |C(t, s)| ds + t |C(u, t)| du R,
ii) [R a(t)f (t, x, y)] 0 for all t [0, ) and all x, y R,

iii) H(x) as x ,
all solutions of the system (4) are continuable to the future, that is, are defined for
all tt0 0.
0
Proof. The derivative V(2)
(t, x(t), y(t)) of the function V defined by (5) along any
solution of system (4) satisfies:

(6)

0
V(2)
(t, x(t), y(t))

=y

t
0

C(t, s)y(s)ds a(t)f (t, x, y)y 2 g(t, y)y+

Z
Z t
2
+
|C(u, t)| duy
|C(t, s)| y 2 (s)ds.
t

A note on the boundedness of an integro-differential equation 215

Thus,
0
V(2)
(t, x(t), y(t))

t
0

|C(t, s)| (y 2 (s) + y 2 )ds a(t)f (t, x, y)y 2 g(t, y)y+

Z
Z t
+
|C(u, t)| duy 2
|C(t, s)| y 2 (s)ds.
0

Hence,
0
V(2)
(t, x(t), y(t)) a(t)f (t, x, y)y 2 g(t, y)y+
Z t
Z
|C(t, s)| ds +
+
0

|C(u, t)| du y 2 .
t

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Using i), we may write

0
V(2)
(t, x(t), y(t)) [R a(t)f (t, x, y)] y 2 g(t, y)y,
0
and so we obtain from this and the assumptions that V(2)
(t, x, y) 0.
It is known that the only way in which a solution (x(t), y(t)) of (4) fails to be
defined after some time T is if the condition

(7)
Lim x2 (t) + y 2 (t) = +,
tT

holds. Let (x(t), y(t)) be such a solution with initial condition (x0 , y0 ). Since V is
positive definite and decreasing function on the trajectories of system (4), we have:
y 2 (T )
+ H(x(T )) + k V0 V (0, x0 , y0 ),
2

(8)
where k =

RT R
0

|C(u, s)| duy 2 (s)ds. From (8) we deduce:

y 2 (T )
+ H(x(T )) K = V0 k.
2

From this inequality and by the condition v) we have that there exists a positive
constant N such that |x(t)| N and |y(t)| N for all T > t0 0.
This shows that (7) is not possible. From this analysis we obtain the boundedness of all solutions of system (4) and therefore, of all solutions x(t) of equation
(2).
2

Corollary. Under the assumptions of the theorem, suppose that

a(t)f (t, x, y) R > 0,
then we have for all solutions of (4) that y(t) L2 [0, ).

 poles Valde
s
J.E. Na

216

Proof.

From the assumptions of the lemma we have that:

0
V(2)
(t, x(t), y(t)) y 2 (t).

If we integrate both sides from 0 to t we have:

0
0 V(2)
(t, x(t), y(t)) V0

implying

R
0

y 2 (s)ds,
0

y (s)ds < .

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Remark 1. As pointed out before, the equation (1) can be considered as a perturbation of equation (3). If in (1) we make C0, a(t)f (t, x, x0 )0, g(t, x0 ) = g(x0 )x0
with g(x0) > 0 for all x0 R, we have:
(9)

x00 (t) + g(x0 (t)) + h(x(t)) = 0.

In [7] Utz established sufficient conditions for the existence of periodic solutions
for equations of type (7), which are similar to our theorem, see also [4].
Remark 2. Our results are also consistent with several earlier results on asymptotic
behaviour of solutions of simple cases of equation (1). We refer the reader to [1, 2,
5, 9] for some interesting examples.
References
1. T.A. Burton, Liapunov functions and boundedness for differential and delay equations, Hiroshima Math. J. 18 (1988), 341350.
2.

, A general stability result of Marachkov type, Ann. of Diff. Eqs.

8(2) 1992, 1481557.

3. R.D. Driver, Existence and stability of solutions of a delay-differential system,

Archives of Rational Mechanics and Analysis 10 (1962), 401426.
0
0
4. H.L.
P Guidorizzi, On the periodic solutions of systems of the type x = H(y), y =
n
f
(x)H
(y)

g(x),
Universidade
de
Sao
Paulo,
RT-Mat
9510,
April
1995.
i
i=1 i

5. S. Murakami, Asymptotic behaviour of solutions of some differential equations, J.

Math. Anal. Appl. 109 (1985), 534-545.
6. R.K. Miller, Asymptotic stability properties of linear Volterra integro-differntial
equations, J. of Differential Equations 10 (1971), 485506.
7. W.R. Utz, Periodic solution of second order differential equations with nonlinear,
nondifferentiable damping, SIAM J. Appl. Math. 31 (1976), 504510.
8. T. Yoshizawa, Stability by Lyapunovs Second Method, Math. Soc. Japan, Tokyo,
1966.
9.

, Asymptotic behavior of solutions in nonautonomous systems, In:

Trends in Theory and Practice of Nonlinear Equations, (V. Lakshmikantham, ed.),
Dekker, 1984, 553562.
Received 14 July, 1998 and in revised form 22 February, 2001.