Global attractivity of linear non-autonomous neutral differential- difference equations (Q1899018)

By means of Lyapunov functionals the global attractivity of the zero solution of the following scalar linear non-autonomous neutral differential-difference equation is studied: \[ {d \over dt} \bigl[ x(t) - a(t) x(t - \tau) = - \mu (t)x(t) - b(t) x(t - \sigma) + c(t) x(t - \gamma) \bigr],\;t \geq t_0, \tag{1} \] where \(a,b,c, \mu : [t_0, \infty) \to R\) are continuous and uniformly bounded, \(|a(t) |\leq a < 1\), \(\tau, \sigma, \gamma \in R_+ = [0, \infty)\). Some easily checked sufficient conditions are obtained. The following Theorem being one of these results gives an idea of what type they are: Theorem. Assume that (i) \(d(t) \equiv \mu (t) + b(t + \sigma) - c(t + \gamma) > 0\) for all large \(t\); (ii) \(\liminf_{t \to \infty} [2d(t) - e(t)] > 0\), where \[ \begin{multlined} e(t) = d(t) \left( \bigl |a(t) \bigr |+ \int_t^{t + \sigma} \bigl |b(s) \bigr |ds + \int_t^{t + \gamma} \bigl |c(s) \bigr |ds \right) + \bigl |a (t + \tau) \bigr |d(t + \tau) + \\ + \bigl |b(t + \sigma) \bigr |\int_t^{t + \sigma} d(s)s + \bigl |c (t + \gamma) \bigr |\int_t^{t + \gamma} d(s) ds. \end{multlined} \] Then the zero solution of equation (1) is globally attractive.