Positive solutions for a fourth-order Riemann-Stieltjes integral boundary value problem (Q2298338)

Summary: In this paper, we use the fixed point index to study the existence of positive solutions for the fourth-order Riemann-Stieltjes integral boundary value problem \(\begin{cases} - x^{\left(4\right)} \left(t\right) = f \left(t, x \left(t\right), x' \left(t\right), x'' \left(t\right), x''' \left(t\right)\right), t \in \left(0,1\right) \\ x \left(0\right) = x' \left(0\right) = x''' \left(1\right) = 0, x'' \left(0\right) = \alpha \left[x'' \left(t\right)\right] \end{cases}\), where \(f\): \( \left[0,1\right] \times \mathbb{R}^+ \times \mathbb{R}^+ \times \mathbb{R}^+ \times \mathbb{R}^+ \longrightarrow \mathbb{R}^+\) is a continuous function and \(\alpha \left[x''\right]\) denotes a linear function. Two existence theorems are obtained with some appropriate inequality conditions on the nonlinearity \(f\), which involve the spectral radius of related linear operators. These conditions allow \(f \left(t, z_1, z_2, z_3, z_4\right)\) to have superlinear or sublinear growth in \(z_i\), \(i = 1,2,3,4\).