Existence, uniqueness and smoothness results for second-kind Volterra equations with weakly singular kernels (Q1347021)

The author studies integral equations of the form \[ y(t)+ \int_ 0^ t K(t, s) p(t, s) y(s) ds= f(t),\qquad t\in (0, T], \] and \[ y(t)- \int_ 0^ t K(t, s) q(t, s) y(s) ds= f(t),\qquad t\in (0, T], \] where \(K\) is a smooth function and \[ p(t, s)= {1\over \sqrt\pi} {1\over \sqrt{\ln(t/s)}}\Biggl({s\over t}\Biggr)^ \mu {1\over s},\qquad q(t, s)= \Biggl({s\over t}\Biggr)^ \mu {1\over s}, \] where \(\mu> 0\). (The kernel \(q\) is thus the ``square'' of the kernel \(p\).) In the case where \(K(t, s)= 1\) one gets explicit formulas for the solutions and one can see that it is only in the case where \(\mu> 1\) that one has unique solutions. For the general case the questions studied are existence, uniqueness, and smoothness of the solutions.