Monotone iterative methods for boundary value problems (Q1854074)

The authors study the boundary value problem \[ -(\varphi \circ u')'=f(t,u,u'), \quad u(a)=u(b)=0, \tag{1} \] where \(-\infty <a<b<\infty ,\) \(f\) is a Carathéodory function and \(\varphi :\mathbb{R}\mapsto \mathbb{R}\) is an increasing homeomorphism with \(\varphi (0)=0.\) Furthermore, it is assumed that (1) admits a well ordered pair of upper and lower functions \(\alpha ,\beta \) and there are \(C>0,\) \(k\in {\roman C}([0,\infty),(0,\infty)),\) \(\psi \in L^p[a,b],\) \(p\in 0,\infty ]\) such that \(f\) satisfies a Nagumo-type condition and a certain additional assumption (\(C\) is ``admissible for \(\varphi ,\) \((\alpha ,\beta)\) and \((k,\psi)\)''). First, the authors show that under these assumptions problem (1) has a maximal and a minimal solution in \([\alpha ,\beta ]\) and the estimate \(\|u'\|_{\infty }<C\) holds for any solution \(u\) to (1) such that \(\alpha (t)\leq u(t)\leq \beta (t)\) on \([a,b]\) (i.e. \(u\in [\alpha ,\beta ]\)). Then they consider two approximation schemes for (1) introduced by E. Picard. It is worth mentioning that the paper contains also a detailed historical survey of the subject.