On intermediate solutions and the Wronskian for half-linear differential equations (Q2381912)

The authors are concerned with the asymptotic properties of nonoscillatory solutions to a half-linear differential equation \[ ( a( t) \Phi( x^{\prime}) ) ^{\prime }+b( t) \Phi( x) =0,\tag{1} \] where \(a,b\) are continuous positive functions for \(t\geq0,\) \(\Phi( u) =| u| ^{p-2}u,\) \(p>1.\) It is known that the Wronskian identity \[ W(t)\equiv a(t)[ y_{1}(t)y_{2}^{\prime}(t)-y_{1}^{\prime}(t)y_{2} (t)] =c\tag{2} \] does not hold for half-linear equations. In this paper, two Wronskian-like functions \(F\) and \(G\) are introduced with the properties similar to those of the Wronskian (2). Monotonicity properties of \(F\) and \(G\) and their asymptotic properties are studied. These Wronskian-like functions help to solve two open problems regarding coexistence of solutions of the equation (1) with different asymptotic behavior formulated by \textit{H. Hoshino, R. Imabayashi, T. Kusano} and \textit{T. Tanigawa} [Adv. Math. Sci. Appl. 8, 199--216 (1998; Zbl 0898.34036)]. The paper concludes with remarks and open problems.