Positive solutions for a system of semipositone coupled fractional boundary value problems (Q257363)

The authors consider the existence of positive solutions of the following system of nonlinear fractional differential equations \[ D_{0^+}^\alpha u(t) + \lambda f(t, u(t), v(t)) = 0, \quad t \in (0, 1), \, \, \alpha \in (n-1, n], \] \[ D_{0^+}^\beta v(t) + \mu g(t, u(t), v(t)) = 0, \quad t \in (0, 1), \, \, \beta \in (m-1, m] \] with solutions subjected to the coupled integral boundary conditions \[ u(0) = u'(0) = \cdots = u^{(n-2)}(0) = 0, \quad u(1) = \int_0^1 \! v(s) \, dH(s), \] \[ v(0) = v'(0) = \cdots = v^{(n-2)}(0) = 0, \quad v(1) = \int_0^1 \! u(s) \, dK(s). \] Here \(n, m \geq 3\), \(D_{0^+}^\ell\) denotes the Riemann-Liouville derivative of order \(\ell\), the integral in the boundary conditions are Riemann-Stieltjes integrals, and the functions \(f\) and \(g\) are allowed to be sign-changing. Furthermore, the functions \(f\) and \(g\) may be singular or nonsingular at \(t=0\) and/or at \(t=1\). The authors begin the second section by stating the definitions of the Riemann-Liouville fractional integral and the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative. They then invert the system and present some properties of the kernels. These properties are used in the third section. They end this section by stating the fixed point theorems they employ in Section 3. The third section of the manuscript contains the main results. In the first two theorems in this section, the authors establish the existence of pairs of constants, \(\lambda_0\) and \(\mu_0\), and \(\lambda^*\) and \(\mu^*\), such that under that given conditions the system has at least one positive solution for all \(\lambda \in (0, \lambda_0]\), \(\mu \in (0, \mu_0]\) and at least one positive solution for all \(\lambda \in (0, \lambda^*], \mu \in (0, \mu^*]\). In the third main result, they state conditions under which the system has at least two positive solutions for all \(\lambda, \mu\) such that \(0< \lambda \leq \min\{\lambda_0, \lambda^*\}\) and \(0 < \mu \leq \min\{\mu_0, \mu^*\}\). They conclude this section with a few theorems giving conditions for which the system has at least one positive solution when \(\lambda\) is large and \(\mu = \lambda\). In the fourth and final section, the authors provide examples illustrating their results.