A criterion for existence of positive solutions of systems of retarded functional differential equations (Q4265732)

The author considers the following functional-differential equation of retarded type \[ y'(t)=f(t,y_t),\quad t\geq t^*,\tag{1} \] with \(f: {\mathbb{R}}\times C([-r,0],{\mathbb{R}}^n)\to{\mathbb{R}}^n\), \(y_t\in C([-r,0],{\mathbb{R}}^n)\): \(y_t(s)=y(t+s)\) (\(s\in[-r,0]\)), \(f(t,0)\equiv 0\). The main result is as follows. Let \(p\in\{1,\ldots,n\}\) be a fixed number. If the \(i\)th coordinate \(f_i(t,\cdot)\) of \(f\) is decreasing for \(i=1,\ldots,p\) and increasing for \(i=p+1,\ldots,n\), then equation (1) has a positive solution iff there exist strictly positive functions \(\lambda_i\in C[t^*-r,\infty)\) satisfying for a positive vector \(k\in{\mathbb{R}}^n\) the inequalities \[ \lambda_i(t)\geq{\mu_i\over k_i} \exp\biggl(-\mu_i\int_{t^*-r}^{t}\lambda_i(s) ds\biggr) f_i\biggl(t,\biggl[k\exp\biggl(\mu\int_{t^*-r}^{t}\lambda_i(s) ds \biggr)\biggr]\biggr), \] with \(\mu_i=-1\) for \(i=1,\ldots,p\) and \(\mu_i=1\) for \(i=p+1,\ldots,n\). As consequences the author obtains some sufficient condition of existence for positive solutions to difference-differential equations.