Three positive solutions of boundary value problems for \(p\)-Laplacian difference equations (Q2483064)

The authors are concerned with the existence of positive solutions of the \(p\)-Laplacian difference equation \[ \Delta[\Phi_p(\Delta u(t-1))]+a(t) f(u(t))=0,\quad t\in[1,T+1], \] satisfying the boundary conditions \[ \Delta u(0)=u(T+2)=0,\qquad \text{or} \qquad u(0)=\Delta u(T+1)=0. \] where \(\Phi_p(s)\) is \(p\)-Laplacian operator, i.e., \(\Phi_p(s)=| s| ^{p-2} s\), \(p>1\), \((\Phi_p)^{-1}=\Phi_q,~\frac{1}{p}+\frac{1}{q}=1\), \(T\geq 1\) is a fixed positive integer, \(\Delta\) denotes the forward difference operator with stepsize \(1\), and \([\alpha,\beta]=\{\alpha,\alpha+1,\dots,\beta-1,\beta\}\subset \mathbb{Z}\) the set of integers. Throughout their paper, the authors assume that \[ f:[0,\infty)\rightarrow[0,\infty)~\text{ is continuous},\quad \text{and}\quad a:[1,T+1]\rightarrow (0,\infty). \] By employing the Avery five functionals fixed point theorem, they prove that the above boundary value problems have at least three positive solutions provided that \(f\) satisfies certain conditions stated in their main result (Theorem 3.1).