Novel criterion for the existence of solutions with positive coordinates to a system of linear delayed differential equations with multiple delays (Q6540967)

The author studies the system of linear retarded delay-differential equations \N\[\N\dot{x}(t) = - \sum_{i=1}^m A^i(t) x(t - \tau_i(t)), \; x(t) \in \mathbb{R}^n \N\]\Nfor non-negative matrices \(A^i(t) \in \mathbb{R}^{n \times n}\) such that \(a^i(t) := \sum_j A^i_{jk}(t)\) is independent of the column index \(k\). Assuming that the sum \(S\) of all matrices \(A_i\) satisfies \(\sum_j S_{ij}(t) > 0\) for each row index \(i\), he proves that the existence of a positive solution for the original system is equivalent to the existence of positive solutions for the scalar system \N\[\N\dot{y}(t) = - \sum_{i=1}^m a^i(t) y(t - \tau_i(t)), \; y(t) \in \mathbb{R}.\N\]\NThe proof relies on Ważewski's principle for retarded differential equations, a Razumikhin-type variant of the original principle for ordinary-differential equations. The key point here is that given a positive solution \(y\) to the scalar equation, reaching the boundary of \(\{x \in \mathbb{R}^n \, | \, x_i > 0, \sum_i x_i < y_i(t)\}\) yields a ``strong exit'' of the set.\N\NNote that by construction, a positive solution \(y(t)\) of the scalar system provides a positive solution \(x(t)\) of the original system such that \(\sum_j x_j(t) < y_j(t)\). The author uses variants of this inequality to derive some asymptotic properties of solutions of the original system.