Oscillation criteria for certain even order quasi-linear neutral differential equations with deviating arguments (Q2383775)

The authors study the oscillatory behaviour of \(n\)-th order neutral differential equations of the form \[ (r(t)| (x(t)+p(t)x(t-\tau))^{(n-1)}|^{\alpha-1}(x(t)+p(t)x(t-\tau))^{(n-1)})' +q(t)f(x(\sigma(t)))=0,\tag{1} \] where \(t\geq t_0\), \(n\) is an even integer, \(\alpha>0\) and \(\tau\geq 0\) are constants. Throughout the paper they assume that: (\(H_1\)) \(p,q\in C([t_0,\infty),\mathbb R))\), \(0\leq p(t)\leq 1\), \(q(t)\geq 0\); (\(H_2\)) \(r\in C^1[t_0,\infty)\), \(r(t)>0\), \(r'(t)\geq 0\), \(R(t)=\int_{t_0}^tr^{-1/\alpha}(s)ds\to\infty\) as \(t\to\infty\); (\(H_3\)) \(f\in C(\mathbb R,\mathbb R)\), \(\frac{f(x)}{| x|^{\alpha-1}x}\geq \beta>0\) for \(x\neq 0\) (\(\beta\) is a constant); (\(H_4\)) \(\sigma\in C^1[t_0,\infty)\), \(\sigma(t)\leq t\), \(\sigma'(t)>0\), \(\lim_{t\to\infty}\sigma(t)=\infty\). Main result of the paper (Theorem 2.1) gives sufficient conditions for equation (1) to be oscillatory and it is applied to the second-order neutral differential equation (2) \((|(x(t)+p(t)x(t-\tau))'|^{\alpha-1}(x(t)+p(t)x(t-\tau))')'+q(t)| x(\sigma(t))|^{\alpha-1}x(\sigma(t))=0\). The purpose of the paper is to improve and extend several known results.