Existence of monotone solutions for functional differential equations (Q1087703)

This article deals with the existence theorems for following boundary value problem \[ x''(t)+f(t,x(t),x(h(t,x(t)),x'(t))=0\quad (a\leq t\leq b), \] x(t)\(=p(t)(-\infty <t\leq a)\), \(x(t)=q(t)\) \((b\leq t<\infty)\) where f(t,x,y,z), h(t,x), p(t), q(t) are given functions. The author reduces this problem to the nonlinear operator equations with completely continuous operator and then he uses the property of the invariance of the Leray-Schauder degree with respect to a homotopy. The main results are formulated in the terms of existence of majorant and mininmal functions (sub- and super-solutions) of different type that are analogous to ones in the case of ordinary differential equations. The author also obtains some special existence results for the problem above by means of a monotone method (in particular the generalization of Chaplygin result on two-sided monotone convergence of successive approximations for the linear differential equations of the second order).