Positive periodic solutions of systems of first order ordinary differential equations (Q860145)

This paper deals with \(n\)-dimensional nonautonomous delay systems of the form \[ \dot x(t)=A(t)G(x(t))-\lambda B(t)F(x(t-\tau(t))), \tag{*} \] where \(A(t)=\text{ diag}[a_1(t), a_2(t), \dots, a_n(t)]\), \(B(t)=\text{ diag}[b_1(t), b_2(t), \dots, b_n(t)]\), \[ F(x)=[f^1(x), f^2(x), \dots, f^n(x)]^T,\quad G(x)=[g^1(x), g^2(x), \dots, g^n(x)]^T \] and \(\lambda>0\) is a positive parameter. Let \(u=(u_1,u_2,\dots, u_n)\), \(\| u\| =\sum_{i=1}^n| u_i| \), \(f_0^i=\lim_{\| u\| \to 0}\frac{f^i(u)}{\| u\| }\), \(f_\infty^i=\lim_{\| u\| \to \infty}\frac{f^i(u)}{\| u\| }\), \(i=1,2,\dots,n\), \(F_0=\max_{1\leq i\leq n}\{f_0^i\}\) and \(F_\infty=\max_{1\leq i\leq n}\{f_\infty^i\}\). Under some conditions, by employing fixed point theorems in a cone, the authors prove that either \(F_0=0\) and \(F_\infty=\infty\) or \(F_0=\infty\) and \(F_\infty=0\), guarantee the existence of positive periodic solutions of (*) for all \(\lambda>0\). Furthermore, they show that \(F_0=F_\infty=0\) or \(F_0=F_\infty=\infty\) guarantee the multiplicity of a positive periodic solution for (*) for sufficiently large, or small \(\lambda\), respectively. The nonexistence of positive periodic solutions to (*) has been established when either \(F_0\) and \(F_\infty>0\) or \(F_0\) and \(F_\infty<\infty\) for sufficiently large, or small \(\lambda\), respectively. For \(n=1\), existence, multiplicity and nonexistence of positive periodic solutions of (*) with a parameter \(\lambda\) was discussed by \textit{H. Wang} [``Positive periodic solutions of functional differential equations'', J. Differ. Equations 202, 354--366 (2004; Zbl 1064.34052)]).