The distribution of zeros of solutions of first-order delay differential equations (Q1341109)

The author obtains upper bounds of the distance between adjacent zeros of solutions of the delay-differential equation \((*)\) \(x'(t) + p(t)x(t - \tau) = 0\), where (i) \(p(t)\) is a nonnegative continuous function on \([T_ 0, \infty)\) and (ii) there exist \(T_ 1 \geq T_ 0\) and \(\rho > 0\) such that \(\int^ t_{t - \tau} p(s) ds \geq \rho > {1 \over e}\) for \(t \geq T_ 1\). Indeed, the following results are obtained: Let \(d(x)\) denote the distance between adjacent zeros of the solution \(x(t)\) of \((*)\). Theorem 1: \(d(x) < \rho^* \tau\), where \[ \rho^* = \max \left \{4,3 + \left[ {2 - 2 \rho - \rho^ 2 \over \rho (1 + \ln \rho)} \right] \right \}\tag{**} \] and \([\alpha]\) denotes the least integer which is not less than \(\alpha\). Theorem 2: (i) \(\rho \geq 2 \Rightarrow d(x) < 3 \tau\), (ii) \(\rho_ 0 \leq \rho < 2 \Rightarrow d(x) < \rho^* \tau\), where \(\rho^*\) is given by \((**)\) and \(\rho_ 0\) is a root of the equation \[ {2 - 2 \rho - \rho^ 2 \over \rho} - \ln (2 - 2 \rho) + 2 \ln \rho = 0 \] on \(({1 \over e}, 0.63)\) and (iii) \({1 \over e} < \rho < \rho_ 0 \Rightarrow d(x) < \kappa_ \rho \tau\), where \[ \kappa_ \rho = \max \left \{4,3 + \left[ {\ln (2 - 2 \rho) - \ln \rho^ 2 \over 1 + \ln \rho} \right] \right\}. \]