Some properties of nonlinear Volterra--Stieltjes integral operators (Q2387386)

The authors consider the nonlinear Volterra--Stieltjes integral operator \[ (Ux)(t)=\int_0^tu(t,s,x(s))d_sg(t,s),\quad t\in I=[0,1], \] where \(d_s\) denotes integration with respect to \(s\). They find suitable conditions which guarantee that the function \(Ux\) is of bounded variation or is nondecreasing on \(I\), where \(x\in C(I)\), the space of real-valued continuous functions defined on \(I\) with the classical maximum norm. Moreover, they investigate the continuity as well as the compactness of the operator \(U\) acting in this space. These results generalize the earlier ones obtained by Banaś and O'Regan for operators having less general form. As applications, the authors formulate existence results concerning continuous, nondecreasing functions of bounded variation which are solutions to the equation \(x=p+Ux\), with \(p\) satisfying suitable assumptions and \(U\) being defined as above.