On oscillation of second order neutral type delay differential equations. (Q1428588)

The paper is concerned with the oscillatory behavior of solutions of the second-order neutral differential equation \[ (r(t)\psi(x(t)z^{\prime}(t))) ^{\prime}+ q(t)f(x(\sigma (t)))=0,\quad t\geq t_{0}, \] where \(z(t)=x(t)+p(t)x(\tau(t)),\) and the functions \(r,\) \(p,\) \(q,\) \(\psi,\) \(\tau,\) \(\sigma,\) \(f\) satisfy a standard set of assumptions. In addition, it is also supposed that (N1) there exists a positive real number \(M\) such that \(\pm f(\pm uv)\geq Mf(u)f(v)\) for \(uv>0;\) (N2) \(u\psi^{\prime}(u)>0,\) for \(u\neq0.\) Three oscillation theorems, corresponding to three different sets of conditions on the functions \(\psi\) and \(f,\) are proved by using an appropriate modification to neutral equations of the well-known integral averaging technique. This adjustment of the method helped the author to reveal a technical condition required for the correction of oscillation criteria for delay differential equations reported in the recent paper by the reviewer [On oscillation of a second-order nonlinear delay differential euation, Funkcial. Ekvac. 43, 1--29 (2000)]. However, a straightforward computation shows that the differential equation in Example 5 (which is a slight modification of Example 1, op. cit.) intended for the illustration of the suggested improvement does not have \(x(t)=\sin t\) as a solution. Unfortunately, conditions (N1) and (N2) are rather restrictive, which reduces the range of application of Theorems 2.1 and 2.2. The choice of \(f\) in Examples 2 and 3 is limited, in virtue of (N1), to \(f(x)=x\) and \(f(x)=x^{3},\) respectively. Furthermore, in Example 2, used illustrating Theorem 2.2, \(\psi(x)=(1+x^{2})^{-1},\) and condition (N2) fails to hold. Theorem 2.3 does not require assumptions (N1) and (N2), as well as monotonicity or differentiability of \(f,\) and thus is more suitable for applications. One should notice that assumption \(q(t)\geq0\) has to be complemented with the condition that \(q(t)\) does not eventually vanish, since without such improvement the arguments used to prove the main results do not apply.