Monotone Method for Second Order Periodic Boundary Value Problems and Periodic Solutions of Delay Difference Equations (Q4435622)

The authors study the second-order delay difference equation \[ -\Delta^2y(k-1)=f(k,y(k),y(k-\tau)), \;k\in\{1,2,\dots,T\},\;y(0)=y(T), \;y(1)=y(T+1), \] where \(\Delta y(k)=y(k+1)-y(k), \tau\in \{0,1, \ldots \}, T\in \{1, 2, \ldots \}\) and \(f\in C(I\times \mathbb{R}^2, \mathbb{R})\). They prove that such problem has extremal solutions lying between a lower solution \(\alpha\) and an upper solution \(\beta\) such that \(\alpha \leq \beta\). Both solutions are given as the limit of two sequences of solutions of suitable problems. Such sequences start at \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\). To this end, some maximum principles related with the operator \( -\Delta^2y(k-1) + M y(k) + N y(k-\tau)\) are proved. The monotone method is also developed, using analogous arguments, to obtain the \(T\)-periodic solutions of the problem \(-\Delta^2y(k-1)=f(k,y(k),y(k-\tau))\), \(k \in \mathbb{Z}\), with \(f\) \(T\)-periodic in its first variable.