An oscillation criterion for superlinear differential equations of second order (Q919159)

A new oscillation criterion is established for second order superlinear ordinary differential equations of the form \(x''(t)+a(t)f[x(t)]=0,\) where a is a continuous real-valued function on an interval \([t_ 0,\infty)\) without any restriction on its sign and f is a continuous real-valued function on the real line \({\mathbb{R}}\), which is continuously differentiable on \({\mathbb{R}}-\{0\}\) and satisfies \(yf(y)>0\) and \(f'(y)\geq 0\) for all \(y\neq 0\), and \(\int^{\pm \infty}[1/f(y)]dy<\infty.\) This criterion includes a recent oscillation result of \textit{J. S. W. Wong} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 98, 109-112 (1986; Zbl 0603.34025)] concerning the special case of the differential equation \(x''(t)+a(t)| x(t)|^{\gamma} sgn x(t)=0,\gamma >1\). The main result of the paper involes the average behavior of the integral of the alternating coefficient a.