Asymptotic analysis of positive solutions of third order nonlinear differential equations (Q2451096)

The authors study the existence and the behavior as \(t\rightarrow \infty \) of proper solutions \(x(t)\) of the equation \[ (|x''|^{\alpha -1}x'')'+q(t)|x|^{\beta -1}x = 0 , \tag{A} \] where \(\alpha \) and \(\beta \) are positive constants such that \(\alpha >\beta \) and \(q: [\alpha ,\infty )\rightarrow (0,\infty )\) is a continuous function, \(\alpha >0\). By a proper solution is meant a function \(x:[T_{x},\infty )\rightarrow {\mathbb R}\), \(T_{x}\geq \alpha \), which satisfies (A) (so that \(|x''|^{\alpha -1}x''\) is continuously differentiable) for all sufficiently large \(t\) and that \(\sup \{ |x(t)|:t\geq T\} >0\) for any \(T\geq T_{x}\) and is non-oscillatory. They emphasize that all such positive solutions \(x(t)\) (observe: \(-x(t)\) is then also a solution) fall into following types {\parindent=6mm \begin{itemize}\item[a)] \(\lim _{t\rightarrow \infty } x(t)/t^{i} = \mathrm{const.} > 0 , \; i=0,1,2\), \item[b)] \(\lim _{t\rightarrow \infty } x(t)/t = \infty , \quad \lim _{t\rightarrow \infty } x(t)/t^{2} = 0\), \item[c)] \(\lim _{t\rightarrow \infty } x(t) = 0 .\) \end{itemize}} Firstly, the authors give necessary and sufficient conditions, in terms of \(q(t)\), for the existence of solutions \(x(t)\) of the type a). Obviously this gives simultaneously the behavior for \(t\rightarrow \infty \) of such solutions. Secondly, to obtain the existence and the behavior as \(t\rightarrow \infty \) of solutions \(x(t)\) of the type b) and c), the coefficient \(q(t)\) is restricted to the class of regularly varying solutions in the sense of Karamata (cf. [\textit{N. H. Bingham} et al., Regular variation. Cambridge etc.: Cambridge University Press (1987; Zbl 0617.26001)]). The solutions then also are regularly varying of index \(\rho \) which is restricted to \(\rho \in (-\infty ,0)\cup [1,2]\). For the proofs the Schauder-Tychonoff fixed point theorem and Karamata integration theorem are used.