1. Introduction
The study of nonlinear fractional systems is currently a topic of significant interest, with researchers dedicating substantial efforts to understanding these systems and their applications in various fields. These endeavors are primarily driven by the desire to utilize the findings regarding the existence of positive solutions in practical contexts. This expansion of differential calculus into the realm of complex real-world dynamics has led to the development and evaluation of novel theories based on empirical data [
1].
A wide range of materials and processes that exhibit hereditary and memory characteristics find accurate descriptions through the nonlocal nature of fractional calculus (FC) [
2,
3]. The implications of these findings span across diverse scientific disciplines, including biomathematics [
4], viscoelasticity [
5], non-Newtonian fluid mechanics [
6], and the characterization of anomalous diffusion [
7].
The literature in the field of fractional differential equations (FDEs) predominantly centers on established concepts like Riemann-Liouville or Caputo derivatives, with some emerging alternatives such as conformable fractional derivatives [
8]. However, it is worth noting that the body of work on FDEs of the conformable type is still evolving. The concept of conformable fractional derivatives was first introduced in 2014 and has gained attention for its computational advantages in solving differential equations. This approach has led to more efficient numerical solutions compared to Riemann-Liouville or Caputo fractional derivatives. Recently, a new formulation of the conformable fractional derivative has been proposed and extensively discussed in the literature [
8,
9,
10]. Researchers have successfully applied conformable fractional derivatives to a wide range of domains, resulting in the establishment of various replicable methodologies [
11].
Beyond the realm of mathematical theory, applications of these findings extend to diverse industries, including telecommunication equipment, synthetic chemicals, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals, where boundary value problems (BVPs) play a significant role. In these industrial processes, positive solutions are often highly desirable for practical reasons, as highlighted in recent research [
12,
13].
In this study, our primary objective is to investigate the following system of fractional differential equations that incorporate
-Laplacian operators. We aim to provide a comprehensive analysis of these equations, considering their potential implications and applications:
where
h and
k are real numbers with
. The operators
correspond to standard Riemann-Liouville fractional order derivatives. Additionally,
,
,
, and
, with
, and
, where
for
.
The boundary conditions for this system are given as:
Here,
,
are positive constants, and
are real numbers within the interval
. It is essential that the conditions
hold for all
.
To ensure the existence of positive solutions to the system (
1)-(
2), we make the following assumptions:
- (B1)
The functions , , and are continuous on the specified domains.
- (B2)
The parameters , , , , and satisfy certain inequalities, ensuring the conditions required for the existence of solutions.
- (B3)
We introduce positive constants , , , , , and with the constraint that .
The study of fractional differential equations is a rapidly expanding field with numerous applications in various domains. Our paper provides essential conditions for the functions
,
, and
, as well as intervals for the parameters
, guaranteeing the existence of at least one and three positive solutions for the specified boundary value problem (
1)-(
2). A positive solution is defined as a triplet of functions
in the space
that satisfies (
1)-(
2) with non-negative values for all
, and where
is not equal to
.
For further insights into the applications of fractional calculus in various fields and related literature on positive solutions with different boundary conditions, we recommend reading the referenced books [
14,
15,
16] and exploring the cited papers [
17,
18,
19,
20,
21,
22,
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32,
33,
34,
35].
The subsequent sections of this paper are organized as follows:
Section 2 introduces foundational concepts and key lemmas essential for underpinning our central results. Moving on to
Section 3, we employ various methodological approaches, including cone expansion and compression of functional type, along with the utilization of the Leggett-Williams fixed point theorem, to expound upon our primary findings. Finally, in
Section 4, we provide practical insights by presenting two illustrative examples that effectively demonstrate the application and relevance of our core discoveries.
2. Preliminaries and lemmas
We refrain from including definitions and valuable lemmas pertaining to fractional calculus theory in this section, as they can be readily referenced in contemporary literature [
2,
3].
Definition 1.
For a function f given on the interval , the Riemann-Liouville fractional order derivative of f is defined by
here and denotes the integral part of α.
Definition 2.
The functional (arbitrary) order integral of the function of order is defined by
where Γ
is the Gamma function.
Lemma 1.
Assume that with a fractional derivative of order then
for some where n is the smallest integer greater than or equal to
Definition 3. Let φ be a cone in the real Banach space . A map is said to be nonnegative continuous concave functional on φ if σ is continuous and for all and
Definition 4. Let φ be a cone in the real Banach space . A map is said to be nonnegative continuous convex functional on φ if ρ is continuous and for all and
: Let be a cone in a Banach space and x be a bounded open subset of and . Then a continuous functional is said to satisfy Rule if one of the following conditions holds:
- (i)
is convex, if and ,
- (ii)
is sublinear, if and ,
- (iii)
is concave and unbounded.
: Let be a cone in a Banach space and x be a bounded open subset of and . Then a continuous functional is said to satisfy Rule if one of the following conditions holds:
- (i)
is convex, if ,
- (ii)
is sublinear, if ,
- (iii)
for all if
Theorem 1. [17] Consider two bounded open subsets, and , within a Banach space denoted as . It is assumed that 0 belongs to , and is a subset of . Furthermore, let κ represent a cone within the same Banach space . We introduce an operator , which maps from to κ and is characterized as completely continuous. Alongside this, two non-negative continuous functionals, σ and ρ, are defined on κ. The main result is contingent upon one of the following two conditions being satisfied:
(a) σ adheres to Rule with for all t belonging to , and ρ adheres to Rule with for all t in .
(b) Conversely, ρ follows Rule with for all t in , and σ conforms to Rule with for all t in .
In either case, the conclusion is that the operator possesses at least one fixed point within the set
Theorem 2.(Leggett-Williams [18]) Let and s be positive real numbers, let κ be a cone in a real Banach space , , ψ be a nonnegative continuous concave functional on κ such that and . Suppose be a completely continuous operator and there exist constants such that
- (i)
and for ,
- (ii)
for ,
- (iii)
for with
Then has at least three fixed points and in satisfying and
In what follows, we calculate the Green’s function associate with (
1)-(
2). Consider the homogeneous boundary value problem:
Lemma 2.
Let If and , then the boundary value problem:
satisfying the boundary condition (4), has a unique solution
where is the Green’s function for the BVP (5)-(4) and is given by
Here and
Proof. Assume that
is a solution of fractional order boundary value problem (
5)-(
4) and is uniquely expressed by
In view of conditions (
4), one can get
and
Hence, we have
□
Lemma 3.
Let Then the FBVP
has a unique solution,
Proof. It follows from Lemma 1 and
that
By
we have
. So,
Thus, the BVP (
7) is equal to the following problem:
By Lemma 2, that boundary value problem (
7) has a unique solution
□
Lemma 4. [25] Suppose that condition hold, then Green’s function have the following properties:
for all
for all
for all where
Remark 1.
In a similar manner, the results of the Green’s function and for the homogeneous BVP corresponding to the fractional differential equation are obtained. Consider the following condition:
where and
We consider the Banach space
with the supremum norm
and the Banach space
with the norm
We define the cone
where
and
.
Consider the coupled system of integral equations
By Lemma 2,
is a solution of boundary value problems (
1)-(
2) if and only if it is a solution of the system of integral equations.
Define the operators
by
and an operator
as
It is clear that the existence of a positive solution to the system (
1)-(
2) is equivalent to the existence of a fixed points of the operator
3. Main results
We denote the following notations for our convenience:
Let us define two continuous functionals
and
on the cone
by
It is clear that
, for all
Lemma 5. is completely continuous.
Proof. By using standard arguments, we can easily show that, the operator
is completely continuous and we need only to prove
. Let
, by Lemma 3, we have
and
Similarly,
and
Therefore
Hence, we get
. By using standard arguments involving the Arzela-Ascoli theorem, we can easily show that
and
are completely continuous, and then
is a completely continuous operator from
to
. □
Theorem 3. Assume that conditions holds and suppose that there exist positive real numbers with and such that satisfying the following conditions:
- (C1)
, and ,
- (C2)
, and .
Then the system of fractional order boundary value problem (1)-(2) has at least one positive and nondecreasing solution satisfying with
Proof. Let
and
It is easy to see that
set
are bounded open subsets of
. Letting
we have
Thus
, i.e
so
.
Claim 1: If
then
for
. It follows
Lemma 4 that
Claim 2: If
then
Then
for
. It follows from
and Lemma 4 that
Clearly,
satisfies Rule
and
satisfies Rule
. Therefore the condition
of Theorem 1 is satisfied and hence
has at least one fixed point
,i.e, the system of fractional order boundary value problem
has at least one positive and nondecreasing solution
satisfying
with
. □
Theorem 4. Assume that conditions holds and suppose that there exist positive real numbers with and such that satisfying the following conditions:
-
(C3)
, and ,
-
(C4)
, and .
Then the system of fractional order boundary value problem has at least one positive and nondecreasing solution satisfying with
Proof. Let and We have set with and are bounded open subsets of .
Claim 1: If
then
. To see this, let
Then
for
. It follows from
and Lemma 4 that
Claim 2: If
then
see this, let
. Then
for
It follows from
and Lemma 4, we have
Clearly,
satisfies Rule
and
satisfies Rule
. Therefore the condition
of Theorem 1 is satisfied and hence
has at least one fixed point
,i.e, the system of fractional order boundary value problem
has at least one positive and nondecreasing solution
satisfying
with
. □
Theorem 5. Assume that holds. Suppose that there exist and such that satisfies the following conditions:
for all , ,
for all , ,
for all , .
Then the system (1)-(2) has at least three positive solution and with with
Proof. Firstly, if
, then we may assert that
is a completely continuous operator. To see this, suppose
then
. It follows from Lemma 4 and
, that
Therefore,
. This together with Lemma 5 implies that
is a completely continuous operator. In the similarly way, if
then from
yields
. This shows that condition
of Theorem 2 is fulfilled.
Now, we let
for
It is easy to verify that
and
and so
. Thus, for all
, we have that
for
and
, from
, we have
Hence the condition
of Theorem 2 is verified. Next, we prove that
of Theorem 2 is satisfied. By Lemma 5, we have
. To sum up, all the conditions of Theorem 2 are satisfied, then there exist three positive solutions
and
with
with
. □
4. Examples
Let
We consider the system of fractional differential equations
where
are parameters. We have
, so assumption
satisfied. Beside we found
Example 1.
We consider the functions
Choosing with then and fulfilling the following conditions:
-
(C1)
, and
-
(C2)
, and .
Thus, all conditions of Theorem 3 are fulfilled. Hence, for , , , the system of (8) and (9) has at least three positive solutions.
Example 2.
We consider the functions
Choosing , then and fulfilling the following conditions:
for all , ,
for all , ,
for all , .
Thus, all conditions of Theorem 5 are fulfilled. Hence, for
,
,
the system of (
8) and (
9) has at least three positive solutions.
Author Contributions
All authors contributed equally and significantly in writing this article. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Funding
The authors extend their appreciation to deanship of scientific research, Jazan University, for supporting this research work through the research units support program support number: RUP2-02.
Acknowledgments
A. A. H. Ahmadini, S. Nageswara Rao are thankful to Jazan University and Mahammad Khuddush is thankful to Chegg India Pvt., Visakhapatnam for the support given throughout the writing of this paper
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
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