Existence of positive almost automorphic solutions to nonlinear delay integral equations (Q1004617)

A bounded continuous scalar function \(f\) defined on \(\mathbb R := (-\infty,\infty)\) is \textit{almost periodic} if every sequence of translates \(f(t + s_n)\) of \(f\) contains a subsequence \(f(t + s_{n_k})\) which converges uniformly to a limit function \(g\). A slightly weaker notion is the one of an almost automorphic function: one does not require the convergence of \(f(t + s_{n_k})\) to \(g(t)\) to be uniform, but it should still be true that the process can be reversed in the sense that, in addition, \(g(t - s_{n_k})\) tends pointwise to \(f(t)\). In this paper it is proved that the equation \[ x(t) = \int_{t-\tau(t)}^t f(s,x(s))ds, \qquad t \in \mathbb R, \] has a unique uniformly positive automorphic solution \(x\) under appropriate conditions on \(\tau\) and \(f\). In addition to some coercivity and continuity conditions it is assumed that \(\tau\) is positive and almost automorphic, and that \(f(s,x)\) is a finite sum of terms of the type \(f_i(s,x)g_i(s,x)\), where \(f_i\) and \(g_i\) are nonnegative, the functions \(f_i\) are nondecreasing in \(x\), and the functions \(g_i\) are noincreasing in \(x\). The asymptotically almost automorphic case is also studied (this is the class of functions that one gets by adding a function tending to zero at \(+\infty\) to an almost automorphic function). Infinite delay equations of the type \[ x(t) = \int_{-\infty}^t a(t-s)f(s,x(s))ds, \qquad t \in \mathbb R, \] are considered as well, and some examples are given.