Solvability for nonlocal boundary value problems on a half line with \(\dim(\ker\, L)=2\) (Q481453)

The authors consider the existence of a solution to the nonlinear boundary value problem of a half-line \[ (cu')'(t) = f(t, u(t), u'(t)), \quad\text{a.e. } t \in (0, 1), \] \[ (cu')(0) = \int_0^\infty \! g(s) (cu')(s) \, ds, \] \[ \lim_{t \to \infty} (cu')(t) = \sum_{i=1}^m \alpha_i(cu')(\xi_i), \] where \(0 \leq \xi_1<\cdots<\xi_m< \infty\), \(\alpha_i \in \mathbb{R}\), \(c \in C[0, \infty)\), \(g \in L^1(0, \infty)\) and \(f\) is Carathéodory. Throughout the paper the authors assume that \[ \sum_{i = 1}^m \alpha_i = 1, \int_0^\infty \! \! g(s) \, ds = 1, c(t)> 0 \text{ for } t \in (0, \infty), \text{ and } \frac{1}{c} \in L^1_{\mathrm{loc}} [0, \infty). \] The boundary conditions together with the above assumptions imply that the operator \(Lu = (cu')'\) is not invertible and in fact that \(\text{dim} (\ker L) = 2\). As such the authors rewrite the problem in the form \(Lu = Nu\), where \(Lu = (cu')'\) and \(Nu(t) = f(t, u(t), u'(t))\), and employ Mawhin's continuation theory to show the existence of a solution to the boundary value problem. In section 2, the authors present background information on Mawhin's continuation theory. Since the underlining interval is a half-line, the authors can not use the Arzelá-Ascoli theorem to establish the compactness of a operator. Instead, they rely a theorem that can be found in the book \textit{R. P. Agarwal} and \textit{D. O'Regan} [Infinite interval problems for differential, difference and integral equations. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers (2001; Zbl 0988.34002)]. They end the second section with the statement of this theorem. Their main results are given in section 3 and they present an example in section 4.