Existence theory for an arbitrary order fractional differential equation with deviating argument (Q411476)

The authors give some sufficient conditions for the existence of at least one or multiple positive solutions of the following nonlinear fractional differential equation with deviating argument: \[ \begin{cases} D^\alpha u(t)+h(t)f(u(\theta(t)))=0, \;t\in (0,1),\\ [D^\beta u(t)]_{t=1}=0,\\ u^{(i)}(0)=0,\;i=0,1,\dots, n-2,\end{cases} \] where \(u^{(i)}\) is the \(i\)th derivative of \(u\), \(n>3\) \((n\in \mathbb{N})\), \(1\leq \beta\leq n-2\) and \(n-1<\alpha \leq n.\) \(D^\alpha\) is the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative of order \(\alpha\). The functions \(f:[0,\infty)\to [0,\infty)\), \(h:[0,1]\to [0,1]\) and \(\theta:(0,1)\to (0,1)\) are continuous. The proofs are obtained by means of Krasnoselkii's fixed point theorem and the fixed point theorem developed by \textit{R. W. Leggett} and \textit{L. R. Williams} [``Multiple positive fixed points of nonlinear operators on ordered Banach spaces'', Indiana Univ. Math. J. 28, 673--688 (1979; Zbl 0421.47033)].