An oscillation criterion for first order difference equations (Q498374)

This paper deals with the first-order difference equation with general argument \[ \Delta x(n)+p(n)x(\tau (n))=0,\quad n=0,1,\dots, \] where \((p(n))_{n\geq 0}\) is a sequence of nonnegative real numbers, \((\tau (n))_{n\geq 0}\) is a sequence of integers, and \(\Delta \) denotes the forward difference operator \(\Delta x(n)=x(n+1)-x(n)\). Let the numbers \(k\) and \(L\) be defined by \[ k=\liminf_{n\rightarrow \infty } \sum_{j=\tau (n)}^{n-1}p(j) \] and \[ L=\limsup_{n\rightarrow \infty} \sum_{j=\tau (n)}^{n}p(j). \] It is proved that, when \(L<1\) and \(0<k\leq \frac{1}{e}\), all solutions of the difference equation oscillate if the condition \(L>2k+\frac{2}{\lambda _{1}}-1\) (where \(\lambda _{1}\in [1,e]\) is the unique root of the equation \(\lambda =e^{k\lambda }\)) is satisfied.