Singular boundary value problems of fractional differential equations with changing sign nonlinearity and parameter (Q904008)

This paper treats the existence of at least one positive solution to a singular boundary value problem for a nonlinear Riemann-Liouville fractional differential equation with delay \[ D^\alpha x(t)+\lambda f(t,x(t-\tau))=0 \text{ for}\quad t\in (0,1), \] \[ x(t)=\eta(t)\text{ for}\quad t\in[-\tau,0], \] \[ x'(1)=x'(0)=0, \] where \(2<\alpha \leq 3\), \(\lambda\) is a positive parameter, \(\tau\in(0,1)\), \(\eta(t)\in C([-\tau,0], \mathbb{R}^{+})\), \(\eta(t)>0\) for \(t\in[-\tau,0)\), \(\eta(0)=0\), \(f(t,x)\in C((0,1)\times \mathbb{R}^+,\mathbb{R})\) and \(f\) may be singular at \(t=0\), \(t=1\), and \(x=0\). The paper uses the Guo-Krasnoselskii fixed point theorem for the main results. The main assumption on \(f\) is as follows: there is a nonnegative function \(\rho \in C(0,1)\cap L(0,1)\) such that \[ \phi_2(t)h_2(x)\leq f(t,v(t)x) +\rho (t)\leq \phi_1(t)(g(x)+h_1(x)). \] Under different conditions for \(\phi_1\), \(h_1\), \(h_2\), \(\phi_2\), the paper obtains 4 different existence theorems of at least one positive solution.