Existence results for initial value problems for neutral functional differential equations (Q5906794)

The authors give a counterexample to show that theorem 3.1 from \textit{S. K. Ntouyas, Y. G. Sficas} and \textit{P. Ch. Tsamatos} [J. Differ. Equations 114, No. 2, 527-537 (1994; Zbl 0810.34061)] fails. This theorem is concerned with an existence theorem for initial value problems for neutral functional differential equations of the form \[ {d\over dt}[x(t)-\lambda g(t,x_t)]=\lambda f(t,x_t),\quad t\in[0,T],\tag{1} \] \[ x_0=\varphi\in C([-r,0],{\mathbb{R}}^n),\tag{2} \] where \(x_t(s)=x(t+s)\) (\(s\in[-r,0]\)), and \(f\), \(g\) are continuous functions from \([0,T]\times C([-r,0],{\mathbb{R}}^n)\) into \({\mathbb{R}}^n\), \(\lambda\in[0,1]\). The given correction of this theorem is as follows. Let \(f\) and \(g\) be completely continuous and for any bounded \(\Lambda\in C([-r,T],{\mathbb{R}}^n)\) the set \(\{t\mapsto g(t,x_t): x\in\Lambda\}\) is equicontinuous in \(C([0,T],{\mathbb{R}}^n)\). Let, moreover, exist a constant \(K\) such that \(|x|_{C([-r,T],{\mathbb{R}}^n)}\leq K\) for each solution of (1)--(2) and any \(\lambda\in[0,1]\). Then the problem (1)--(2) for \(\lambda=1\) has at least one solution in \([-r,T]\). The equations with infinite delay and the problem of periodic solutions are also discussed.