A monotone method for fourth order periodic boundary value problems and periodic solutions of functional differential equations (Q2458958)

The authors consider the periodic boundary value problem \[ \begin{gathered} y^{(4)}(t)= f(t, y(t), y(w(t))),\quad t\in I= [0,T],\\ y^{(i)}(0) =y^{(i)}(T),\quad i= 0,1,2,3,\end{gathered}\tag{1} \] with \(f\in C(I\times \mathbb R^2,\mathbb R)\), \(w\in C(I,[a, b])\), \([0,T]\subset [a,b]\), \(t> 0\), and the existence of \(T\)-periodic solutions of the functional differential equation \[ y^{(4)}(t)= f(t, y(t), y(w(t))),\quad t\in \mathbb R, \] where \(f\in C(\mathbb R^2,\mathbb R)\), \(f(t,u,v)= f(t+ T,u,v)\), \(T> 0\), \(w(t)= t-\tau(t)\), \(\tau\in C(\mathbb R,\mathbb R)\), \(\tau(t)= \tau(t+ T)\). First, they derive a maximum principle for the functional differential equation \[ y^{(4)}(t)- My(t)- Ny(w(t))= 0 \] with periodic boundary conditions. Then they use the method of lower and upper solutions coupled with monotone iteration to prove the existence of extremal solutions for (1) and the existence of \(T\)-periodic solutions.