Comparison theorems of oscillation and nonoscillation for neutral difference equations with continuous arguments (Q1423940)

The paper is devoted to the oscillatory properties of the neutral difference equation with continuous argument \[ \nabla_{\tau}(y(t)-y(t-\tau))+\sum_{i=1}^mp_i(t)y(t-\sigma_i)=0,\tag{1} \] where \(\nabla_{\tau}\) is the backward difference operator, i.e. \(\nabla_{\tau}y(t)=y(t)-y(t-\tau)\); \(p,p_i\in C([t_0,\infty),\mathbb{R}^+)\), \(i=1,\ldots,n\); \(t_0\geq 0\); \(\sigma_i>\tau>0\) are constants. The following condition plays an important role throughout the paper. Condition (H): For sufficiently large \(t\) one has \(\sum_{i=1}^mp_i(t+k\tau)\not\equiv 0\) with respect to \(k\in\mathbb{N}\) and either the function \(p(t)\) has arbitrarily large zeros or there exists \(s_0\geq t_0\) such that \(p(s_0+k\tau)>0\) for any \(k\in\mathbb{N}\) and \(\sum_{k=1}^{\infty} [\prod_{i=0}^kp(s_0+i\tau)]^{-1}=\infty\). The authors obtain new comparison theorems on oscillation for equation (1). For example, according to Theorem~3.1, equation (1) oscillates if condition (H) holds and the delay differential equation \(x'(t)+(1/\tau)\sum_{i=1}^m\overline{p}_i(t)x(t-\sigma_i+\tau)=0\) oscillates. Here \(\overline{p}_i(t)=\min_{t-\tau\leq s\leq t}\{p_i(s)\}\), \(i=1,\ldots,n\). Some explicit theorems are given as well. Several theorems on sufficient conditions for nonoscillation are also presented.