1. Introduction and Preliminaries
The concept of fuzzy sets was initially presented by Zadeh [
1] in 1965, wherein he defined a fuzzy set as: a fuzzy set
on a non-empty set
is a function from
to
This concept plays a very important role in several scientific and engineering applications. Thereafter, Kramosil and Michalek [
2] introduced the notion of fuzzy metric spaces which has been modified later on by George and Veeramani [
3] holding the Hausdorffness property for such modified spaces.
The fuzzy fixed point theory was started by Grabiec [
4] in 1988, wherein he presented the concepts of
G-Cauchy sequences and
G-complete fuzzy metric spaces and provided a fuzzy metric version of Banach’s contraction principle. To date, many fixed point results have been provided on such spaces. In fact, the above mentioned concept of
G-completeness is not a very natural notion, as even
(the set of real numbers) is not complete in this sense. In this quest, in 1994 George and Veeramani [
3] slightly modified the concepts of fuzzy metric spaces and
M-Cauchy sequences wherein they found a Hausdorff topology in their new defined notion of fuzzy metric spaces. Later, in 2002, Gregori and Sapena [
5] defined fuzzy contractive mappings and proved a very natural extension of the well-known Banach contraction principle for such mappings in
G-complete as well as
M-complete fuzzy metric spaces. Mihet [
6] in 2008 extended the class of Gregori and Sapena’s fuzzy contractive mappings [
5] and proved a fuzzy Banach contraction result for complete non-Archimedean fuzzy metric spaces in the sense of Kramosil and Michalek.
On the other hand, relation-theoretic fixed point theory is a relatively new direction of fixed point theory. This direction was initiated by Turinici [
7] and it becomes a very active area after the appearance of the great results due to Ran and Reurings [
8] and Nieto and Lopez [
9,
10] wherein they provided a new version for Banach contraction principle equipping the contractive condition with an ordered binary relation. The authors in [
8,
9,
10] provided several interested applications to boundary value problems and matrix equations which supported their fixed point results strongly. Thereafter, a lot of fixed point theorems have been provided in which various definitions of binary relations were equipped (e.g., [
11,
12,
13,
14,
15] and several others).
Now, let us recall some basic definitions, notions, and results which will be needed in the following.
Definition 1 ([
2])
. A continuous t-norm ∗ is a continuous binary operation which is commutative and associative and satisfies:- (i)
;
- (ii)
whenever and
The following are some well-known examples of continuous t-norm: , , and , .
Kramosil and Michalek [
2] defined fuzzy metric spaces as under.
Definition 2 ([
2])
. Let be a fuzzy set on and ∗ a continuous t-norm. Assume that ( and ):(KM-i) ;
(KM-ii) iff ;
(KM-iii) ;
(KM-iv) ;
(KM-v) is left continuous.
Then is called a fuzzy metric space (Kramosil and Michalek’s sense).
Definition 3. If we replace the axiom (KM-iv) by:
(KM-iv) and , then is known as a non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space. It is easy to check that the triangular inequality (KM-iv) implies (KM-iv), that is, every non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space is itself a fuzzy metric space.
The topology of a fuzzy metric space (Kramosil and Michalek’s sense) is not Hausdorff in general. In order to have Hausdorffness property, George and Veeramani [
3,
16] slightly modified the definition of fuzzy metric spaces such that the topology of the newly defined fuzzy metric space becomes Hausdorff.
Definition 4 ([
3,
16])
. Let be a fuzzy set on and ∗ a continuous t-norm. Assume that ( and ):(GV-i) ;
(GV-ii) iff ;
(GV-iii) ;
(GV-iv) ;
(GV-v) is continuous.
Then is called a fuzzy metric space (George and Veeramani’s sense).
Remark 1 ([
3])
. The topology of a fuzzy metric space in the sense of Definition 4 is Hausdorff. Remark 2 ([
3])
. Every fuzzy metric space in the sense of Definition 4 is a fuzzy metric space in the sense of Definition 2, the converse is not true in general. Example 1. Let be an ordinary metric space and let ϕ be a nondecreasing and continuous function from such that (Some examples of these functions are and ). Let for all For each define It is easy to see that is a non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space.
Remark 3 ([
2])
. For all , is a non-decreasing mapping. Definition 5 ([
3,
4,
16])
. Let be a fuzzy metric space. A sequence is said to be convergent to ifin this case, we write Cauchy if and , satisfying Let be a fuzzy metric space. If every Cauchy sequence in is convergent in , then is said to be complete.
Lemma 1 ([
17])
. If is a fuzzy metric space, then is a continuous function on . Definition 6 ([
18])
. Let be a fuzzy metric space. Then the mapping M is said to be continuous on ifwhenever is a sequence in which converges to a point i.e., Roldán-López-de-Hierro [
19] defined a comparison function
which satisfies:
- (A)
is non-decreasing and left continuous;
- (B)
for all
- (C)
Let denotes the family of all such functions
For example, for all Notice that, using the previous definition, the condition is not necessarily true.
Remark 4 - (i)
for all
- (ii)
if for some then
- (iii)
If and then
Now, we recall some relation-theoretic notions as follows.
Definition 7 ([
20])
. A subset of is called a binary relation on . If (we may write instead of ), then we say that “x is related to y under ”. If either or , then we write . Observe that is a binary relation on called the universal relation. In this presentation, is to a non-empty set and refers for a non-empty binary relation on .
Definition 8 ([
21,
22])
. A binary relation on a non-empty set is said to be:(i) reflexive if ;
(ii) transitive if and imply ;
(iii) antisymmetric if and imply ;
(iv) partial order if it is reflexive, antisymmetric and transitive;
(v) complete if ;
(vi) f-closed if where is a mapping.
Definition 9 ([
23])
. Let be a non-empty set and be a binary relation on A sequence is said to be an -preserving sequence if for all Recently, Alfaqih et al. [
24] presented a relation-theoretic version for the fuzzy version of Banach contractive principle wherein the authors introduced relation-theoretic versions of several fuzzy metrical notions as follows.
Definition 10 ([
24])
. A binary relation on is said to be an -self-closed if given any convergent -preserving sequence which converges (in fuzzy sense) to some , with . Example 2 ([
24])
. Let and ∗ be the product t-norm given by . Define by ( and )Observe that if is an -preserving sequence which converges to some , then such that either or . Therefore, is a subsequence of such that for each . Hence, is -self closed.
Definition 11. A sequence is called -Cauchy if and satisfying (for all ) Remark 5. Every Cauchy sequence is an -Cauchy sequence, for any arbitrary binary relation . -Cauchyness coincides with Cauchyness if is taken to be the universal relation.
Definition 12. A fuzzy metric space which is endowed with a binary relation is said to be -complete if every -Cauchy sequence is convergent in .
Remark 6. Every complete fuzzy metric space is -complete fuzzy metric space, for any arbitrary binary relation . -completeness coincides with completeness if is taken to be the universal relation.
The present paper aims to introduce the concept of fuzzy
contractive mappings and prove some relevant results on the existence and uniqueness of fixed points for such mappings in the setting of non-Archimedean fuzzy metric spaces (in Kramosil and Michalek’s sense as well as George and Veeramani’s sense) which extended and generalized the results in [
6,
19]. We also provide some illustrative examples which support our work. In the last section, we apply our newly fixed point results to prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions for Caputo fractional differential equations.
2. Main Results
We start our main section with the following lemma which will be useful in the proof of our main results.
Lemma 2. Let and a transitive binary relation which is closed. Assume that there exists such that and define in by for all Then Proof. As there exists such that and , then As is closed and , we deduce that . By continuing this process, we find for all Suppose that so and Due to the transitivity of , we find Similarly, as and , we find By continuing this process, we obtain for all with As required. □
Next, we introduce the notion of KM-fuzzy contractive mapping as follows:
Definition 13. Let be a non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space (in the sense of Kramosil and Michalek), a binary relation on and . We say that f is a KM-fuzzy contractive mapping if there exists such that (for all and all with ) The following is an example of a KM-fuzzy contractive mapping.
Example 3. Let and let ∗ be the product norm given by Define for all by Define , and on by Then f is a KM-fuzzy contractive mapping as we will prove later on.
Now, we are equipped to state and prove our first main result as under.
Theorem 1. Let be a non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space (in the sense of Kramosil and Michalek) equipped with a binary relation and . Assume that is an complete and f is a KM-fuzzy contractive mapping such that:
- (i)
there exists in such that and for all
- (ii)
is transitive and closed;
- (iii)
one of the following holds:
- (a)
f is continuous or
- (b)
is self-closed.
Then f has a fixed point in
Proof. From , there exists such that and for all . Define a sequence in by for all If for some then is a fixed point of Assume that for all
As
for all
and in view of Lemma 2 and (
2), we obtain
If there is some
such that
then
. This implies that
, (due to condition (C) of the definition of
) which contradicts (
3). Therefore,
for all
Continuing with the same scenario, we deduce that for all
and all
for all
and all
which implies that the sequence
is non-decreasing sequence and bounded above. Hence, there exists
for all
such that
Now, we show that
for all
If there is
such that
then
hence,
As
is left-continuous and
is non-decreasing sequence of positive numbers, letting
in (
4) we obtain
a contradiction (
Therefore,
for all
That is,
Next, we show that
is a Cauchy sequence in
If on the contrary,
is not a Cauchy sequence, then there exists
and some
such that, for all
, there exist
such that
satisfies
As
is non-Archimedean, we have for all
Letting
and using that ∗ is continuous, and (
5) we can conclude that
Additionally, as
is non-Archimedean, we have (for all
)
and
Taking
in the above inequalities and using (
5), (
6), we find
That is,
whenever
k is large enough. Now, using (
2) and Lemma 2, we have, (for all
k)
Letting
and using (
5)–(
7) and the fact that
is left-continuous we deduce that
a contradiction. Hence,
must be a Cauchy sequence in
Now, we have
, an
Cauchy sequence, and
, an
complete, so there exists
such that
Now, if f is continuous, then taking the limit as on the both sides of we obtain
Otherwise, if
is
self-closed, then there exists a subsequence
such that
for all
We claim that
As
we have
for all
Then
when
k is large enough for all
and as
from condition (
2) we find
Letting
and using (
5),
, we find
Hence, from Remark 4 (iii) and the continuity of
, we obtain
Thus, The uniqueness of the limit gives that This ends the proof. □
Next, we provide the following uniqueness theorem.
Theorem 2. In addition to the hypotheses of Theorem 1, if the following condition holds:
- (iv)
for all there exists such that and and for all
Then the fixed point of f is unique.
Proof. In view of Theorem 1,
. Let
by condition (iv) there exists
such that
and
for all
Define
and
for all
We claim that
As
for all
, then from (
2) we have
By induction, we find
for all
and
and as
is
f-closed, we conclude that (by induction),
for all
Hence
Thus,
is non-decreasing and bounded above. Hence, there exists
for all
such that
Letting
in (
8), and as
is left-continuous, we find
. Therefore, in view of Remark 4, we deduce that
for all
Thus,
Similarly, we can show that
As
is non-Archimedean, we find (for all
)
Letting
and using the continuity of ∗, we can conclude that
Hence, As required. □
Now, we present the following example which exhibits the utility of Theorems 1 and 2.
Example 4. Consider the mapping f given in Example 3. We are going to show that all the hypotheses of Theorem 1 are satisfied.
Proof. It is obvious that
is
complete non- Archimedean fuzzy metric space (see [
25], Example 1.3).
Note that
is transitive on
and hence
for all where , we see that and so when we have that means is closed;
if is -preserving sequence, that is then for all Hence, is non-decreasing sequence and bounded above, that is Therefore, and for all Thus, and is self-closed.
Now, we show that f is a KM-fuzzy contractive mapping. For all we have Hence, if and we find Thus, f is a KM-fuzzy contractive mapping. Then all the hypotheses of of Theorem 1 are satisfied and 3 is a fixed point of Observe that Theorem 2 is also satisfied on and 3 is the unique fixed point of f. □
If we put where in Theorems 1 and 2 we have the following corollary.
Corollary 1. Let be an complete non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space (in the sense of Kramosil and Michalek) with a binary relation and be mapping such that there exists and for all all with Additionally, - (i)
there exists in such that and for all
- (ii)
is transitive and closed;
- (iii)
one of the following holds:
- (a)
f is continuous or
- (b)
is self-closed.
Then f has a fixed point in In addition, if the following condition holds
- (iv)
for all there exists such that and for all
Then the fixed point is unique.
In the rest of this, we show that Theorems 1 and 2 can be achieved in the setting of complete non-Archimedean fuzzy metric spaces (in the sense of George and Veeramani).
Now, we define GV-fuzzy contractive as under.
Definition 14. Let be a non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space (in the sense of George and Veeramani), a binary relation and a mapping. We say that f is a GV-fuzzy contractive mapping if there exists such that, for all with Next, we provide the following Theorems in the sense of George and Veeramani fuzzy metric space.
Theorem 3. Let be a non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space (in the sense of George and Veeramani) with a binary relation and . Assume that is an complete and f is a GV-fuzzy contractive mapping such that:
- (i)
there exists in with
- (ii)
is transitive and closed;
- (iii)
one of the following holds:
- (a)
f is continuous or
- (b)
is self-closed.
Then f has a fixed point in
Proof. From
there exists
such that
. Define a sequence
in
by
for all
If
for some
then
is a fixed point of
Assume that
for all
As
and in view of (
9), we obtain
by Definition 1 we find
, which is a contradiction. Hence,
Continuing this process, we deduce that
for all
As the proof of Theorem 1 we have
Next, we show that
is a Cauchy sequence in
If, on the contrary,
is not a Cauchy sequence, then as the proof of Theorem 1 we find
Now, using the contractive condition (
9) and Lemma 2, we have for all
Letting
and using (
11)–(
13) and the left-continuity of
, we find that
a contradiction. Hence,
must be a Cauchy sequence in
As
is
complete, there exists
such that
From condition (a), if
f is continuous, as the proof of Theorem 1 we have
From condition (b) if
is
self-closed, then there exists a subsequence
such that
and
for all
Suppose that
and from condition (
9) we find
Letting
and using (
11),
, we find
As
is left-continuous and
is continuous, we have
Hence, from Remark 4 (iii), we find As required. That is □
Next, we provide the following uniqueness theorem.
Theorem 4. In addition to the hypotheses of Theorem 3, if the following condition holds:
- (iv)
for all there exists such that and
Then the fixed point of f is unique.
Proof. In view of Theorem 3,
. Let
by condition (iv) there exists
such that
Define
for all
and
As
then as the proof of Theorem 3 we have
We claim that
As
and
is
f-closed, we find by induction
for all
then from (
9) we have
Case I: if
for all
we have
Thus,
is non-decreasing and bounded above. So, as in Theorem 2
Case II: if
for all
we have
By taking
and using (
14) we find
Therefore, from two cases we conclude that
Similarly, we can show that
As
is Hausdorff then from (
15) and (
16), we obtain
. This ends the proof. □
If we put where in Theorems 3 and 4 we have the following corollary.
Corollary 2. Let be an complete non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space (in the sense of George and Veeramani) with a binary relation and be mapping such that there exists and for all with Furthermore,
- (i)
there exists in such that
- (ii)
is transitive and closed;
- (iii)
one of the following holds:
- (a)
f is continuous or
- (b)
is self-closed.
Then f has a fixed point in In addition if the following condition holds
- (iv)
for all there exists such that and
Then the fixed point is unique.
3. Application to Nonlinear Fractional Differential Equations
In this section, we apply our main results to study the existence of a solution of boundary value problems for fractional differential equations involving the Caputo fractional derivative.
Let
be the Banach space of all continuous functions from
into
with the norm
Define
for all
by
It is well known that
is a complete non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space with
(see [
17,
25]). Define a binary relation
on
by
As is a complete non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space with , then is an complete non-Archimedean fuzzy metric space with . In addition, it is easy to see that is transitive.
Now, let us recall the following basic notions which will be needed subsequently.
Definition 15 ([
26])
. For a function u given on the interval the Caputo fractional derivative of function u order is defined bywhere denotes the integer part of the positive real number β and Γ is a gamma function. Consider the boundary value problem for fractional order differential equation given by:
where
denotes the Caputo fractional derivative of order
is a continuous function and
are real constants.
Definition 16 ([
27])
. A function with its β-derivative existing on is said to be a solution of (18) if x satisfies the equation on and the conditions The following lemma is required in what follows.
Lemma 3 ([
27])
. Let and let be continuous. A function x is a solution of the fractional integral equationif and only if x is a solution of the fractional boundary value problemswhere Now, we state and prove our main result in this section.
Theorem 5. Suppose that
- (i)
for all there exists such that - (ii)
there exists such that - (iii)
h is nondecreasing in the second variable;
Then, the Equation (18) has a unique solution in
Proof. Define
by
where
First, we show that
H is continuous. Let
be a sequence such that
in
Then for each
As
h is a continuous function, we have
Hence, H is continuous.
Clearly, the fixed points of the operator
H are solutions of the Equation (
18). We will use Theorem 3 to prove that
H has a fixed point.
Therefore, we show that
H is a GV-fuzzy
contractive mapping. Let
so
, for all
Observe that
Therefore,
with
and
This shows that
H is a GV-fuzzy
contractive mapping. From (ii), we conclude that
for all
then
that is, the condition (i) of Theorem 3 is satisfied. Let
for all
from (iii), as
h is nondecreasing in the second variable, we have
we conclude that
for all
then
(i.e.,
) that is,
is
H-closed and the condition (iii) of Theorem 3 satisfies. Therefore, all the hypotheses of Theorem 3 are satisfied. Hence,
H has a fixed point which is a solution for the Equation (
18) in
Finally, observe that if
are two fixed points of
H in
, then
,
, and
. Additionally,
and
for all
(due to Definition 4). Therefore, Theorem 4 is also satisfied. Hence, the fixed point of
H is unique and thus the solution of (
18) is also unique in
This ends the proof. □
Finally, we provide the following example which supports Theorem 5.
Example 5. Consider the boundary value problem of fractional differential equation Let and Then Hence, condition (i) of Theorem 5 is satisfied with Now, we check that Hence, (19) holds. Taking then, This shows that condition (ii) of Theorem 5 is also fulfilled. Additionally, if we conclude Therefore, condition (iii) of Theorem 5 holds. Therefore, Equation (20) has a unique solution on .