On exact rates of decay of solutions of linear systems of Volterra equations with delay (Q2492960)

The authors estimate and investigate the exact rate of decay of the matrix-valued solution \(R\) of the linear Volterra integral equation \[ R(t)=F(t)+\int_0^t H(t-s)R(s)\,ds \] with a convolution kernel. An implicit asymptotic relation \(\lim_{t\to\infty} R(t)/\Gamma(t)\) is obtained under complicated technical conditions for a matrix-valued weight function \(\Gamma(t)\). Moreover, under a natural hypothesis on the data an explicit asymptotic is deduced for a weight \(\Gamma(t)=\gamma(t)I\), where \(\gamma\) is a scalar function from the class \(\mathcal{U}(\mu)\) which depends on a real parameter \(\mu\). It is required that either the limit \(\lim_{t\to\infty}F(t)/\gamma(t)\) or the limit \(\lim_{t\to\infty}H(t)/\gamma(t)\) exists and is nontrivial. Then the limit \(\lim_{t\to\infty}R(t)/\gamma(t)\) exists and the authors provide an explicit expression for it. Similar results are obtained for integro-differential convolution equations with delay. An application to a linear compartmental system with discrete and continuous lags is presented as well.