Necessary and sufficient condition for the global attractivity of the trivial solution of a delay equation with continuous and piecewise constant arguments (Q1376791)

The authors investigate the delay differential equation \(x'(t)+ px(t-l)+ qx([t- k])= 0\), where \(p\), \(q\) are complex numbers; \(l,k\in\mathbb{N}\) and \([\cdot]\) denotes the greatest integer function. It is stated and proved that a necessary and sufficient condition for the global attractivity of the trivial solution of this equation is that its characteristic equation \[ \lambda\exp(p\lambda^{-l})- 1+q\lambda^{-k} \int^1_0\exp(p\lambda^{-l}\theta) d\theta= 0 \] has no roots for \(|\lambda|\geq 1\).