1. Introduction and Preliminaries
Fixed point theory is a vital branch of nonlinear analysis. It has also been used extensively in the study of all kinds of scientific problems, such as fractional differential equations, stochastic operator theory, engineering mathematics, dynamical systems, physics, computer science, models in economy and related areas (see [
1,
2]). One of the most important results in fixed point theory is the Banach contraction principle [
3], which is used in metric spaces. Nowadays, with the indefatigable efforts of several generations, it has been generalized to many other spaces, such as fuzzy metric space, Menger space,
b-metric space, probabilistic metric space and so on (see [
2,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11,
12]). It is worth mentioning that a generalization of this principle in the context of probabilistic metric spaces was performed by Ćirić [
13], where quasi-contractive mappings were introduced and the triangle norm
was used. In recent years, the pioneering fixed point theorem of Sehgal and Bharucha-Reid [
14,
15] is a strong incentive and motivation for the further development of the principle on probabilistic metric spaces. There are plenty of papers (see [
12,
16,
17,
18,
19,
20,
21]) motivated by the above results. On the other hand, the theory of probabilistic metric spaces is the first area where the triangular norm plays a significant role. Therein, the concept of triangle norm was first introduced by Menger in [
22] by initiating it from the basic triangle inequality. The original set of axioms is the content and core known today as triangle conorms, and it is necessary to make some changes. Schweeizer and Sklar [
23] gave the final definition of triangular norms. In modern society, triangular norms have been affirmed to be an important operation in several fields as well, such as fuzzy logic theory, general measure theory, differential equation theory and so on.
Generally speaking, fixed point theorems in the framework of probabilistic metric spaces are interesting for two reasons: how much we can “relax” the contractive condition without “narrowing” the class of triangular norms too much, and vice versa. It is well-known that when using the minimum triangular norm, the contractive condition is the most “relaxed”. However, because the minimum triangular norm is the strongest, fixed point theorem with such a strong condition on the triangular norm is the least interesting. In addition, most fixed point theorems that have been proven in metric spaces can be “translated” to probabilistic metric spaces if the triangular norm minimum is used. That is why it is a huge challenge for finding the “optimal relationship” between the contractive condition and the choice of the triangular norm with a potential additional condition on the probabilistic distribution function itself.
Based on the above statements, in this paper, we propose an additional condition both on the metric itself and on the triangular norm in probabilistic metric spaces. Many corollaries, examples and applications are also shown.
First of all, for the sake of readers, in what follows we recall some notions and known results.
Definition 1 ([
24])
. The mapping is a triangular norm if, for all the following conditions are satisfied:
,
Basic examples of triangular norms are as follows:
In 1983, Schweizer and Sklar introduced the concept of triangular conorm as dual operations to the triangular norm.
Definition 2 ([
23])
. The mapping is a triangular conorm if, for all the following conditions are satisfied:;
;
for .
The connection between triangular norm and triangular conorm is given by the following result.
Proposition 1 ([
24])
. The function is a triangular conorm if and only if there is a triangular norm τ such that for each The opposite statement is also true. Basic examples of triangular conorms are the following ones:
Triangular norms of
h-type (see [
5]) represent a very important class, especially in the theory of fixed point.
Definition 3. Let τ be a triangular norm and a mapping defined in the following way: A triangular norm τ is h-type if the family is equi-continuous at the point , that is, if for every there exists such that implies for every .
Using Definition 3, for every
, we have
Because the sequence
is non-decreasing and bounded from below, we obtain
for every
. The analogous case could be applied to triangular conorms.
Proposition 2 ([
11])
. Let be a sequence in such that and let the triangular norm τ be h-type. Then, For some families of triangular norms , there exists a sequence such that and .
Definition 4 ([
11])
. The triangular norm τ is called geometrically convergent if for some , it satisfies It is proved from [
2] that (
1) implies
for every
.
Proposition 3 ([
11])
. Let τ be a triangular norm and a mapping. If, for some and all , the following is satisfied,then for every sequence in such that , the following implication is valid: Definition 5 ([
11])
. The triangular norm τ is strict if it is continuous and strictly monotone, i.e., if whenever and A simple example of a strict triangle norm is .
Example 1. The Dombi, Aczél–Alsina and Sugeno–Weber families of triangular norms are defined as follows:where if and , otherwise. The following proposition is given in [
11].
Proposition 4. Let and be Dombi, Aczél–Alsina and Sugeno–Weber families of triangular norms, respectively, and a sequence in such that Then, the following equivalences hold:
- (a)
, where ;
- (b)
.
Definition 6 ([
5])
. The continuous triangular norm is said to be an Archimedean triangle norm if for every . Theorem 1 ([
11])
. (a) The function is a continuous Archimedean triangular norm if and only if there exists a continuous and strictly decreasing function called an additive generator of τ with and , for any .- (b)
The function is a continuous Archimedean triangular norm if and only if there exists a continuous and strictly increasing function called a multiplicative generator of τ with and , for any .
Remark 1. Triangular norm τ is strict if and only if
Proposition 5 ([
11])
. Let τ be a strict triangular norm with an additive generator and the corresponding multiplicative generator θ. Let be a sequence in such that . Then,- (a)
- (b)
hold if and only if
Definition 7 ([
23])
. Let Ω be a nonempty set and be the set of all distribution functions. Suppose that is a mapping and for each . The ordered pair is called a probabilistic metric space if the following conditions are satisfied: for all ;
for all ;
if and only if for all ;
and imply , for all and all .
Definition 8. Let be a probabilistic metric space. The sequence from Ω is called a Cauchy sequence if for every and , there exists such that , for each and each .
If the probabilistic metric space is such that every Cauchy sequence in Ω converges to Ω, then is called a complete space.
Definition 9. Let be a probabilistic metric space and τ a triangular norm. The ordered triple is called a generalized Menger probabilistic metric space if the following inequality is satisfied:
for all and all .
Definition 10. If is a complete Menger probabilistic metric space with a continuous triangular norm τ, then Ω is called a Hausdorff topological space with topology induced by the family -environmentwherein Remark 2. If , then the family defined on Ω is a metrizable topology.
One of the most important generalizations of probabilistic metric spaces is represented by fuzzy metric space which was introduced by Kramosil and Michalek [
25]. They defined the notion of fuzzy metric space using the notion of a fuzzy number and gave a connection between probabilistic metric spaces and fuzzy metric spaces.
The fuzzy number
u is the mapping of
. We say that the fuzzy number
u is normal if there exists
such that
and it is convex if for each
and for each
the following is satisfied:
By
, we denote all fuzzy numbers that satisfy the condition that they are semi-continuous, normal and convex from above, where
For the fuzzy number u, the -cutting level is defined as follows, where is a nonempty closed interval if and semi-open interval if or .
Let
be symmetric, non-decreasing in both argument functions, satisfying
and
. Let
be a nonempty set,
a mapping satisfying for each
, and for
, one has
Fuzzy metric space is defined as an ordered quadruple where d is the fuzzy metric if the following conditions are satisfied:
for each
for each
, whenever and for each
whenever and for each
Every general Menger space
is also a fuzzy metric space
if
The functions
R and
L are defined as follows:
If
then
is a Menger space, where
, for each
, and the mapping
is defined by
where
.
The following lemma from [
10] gives the connection between fuzzy metric spaces and probabilistic metric spaces.
Lemma 1. Let be a fuzzy metric space, a continuous, monotonically decreasing function such that and and d and R satisfy the following conditions:
- (a)
, for each ;
- (b)
, , for each ;
- (c)
R is associative.
Then, is a generalized Menger space, where and τ are defined as follows: As we know, one of the most important results from fixed point theory is Banach’s contraction principle in metric spaces:
Each Banach q-contraction in the complete metric space has a unique fixed point.
Sehgal and Bharucha-Reid generalized the concept of the Banach q-contraction in the framework of probabilistic metric spaces.
Definition 11 ([
15])
. Let be a probabilistic metric space. The mapping is said to be a probabilistic Banach q-contraction if there exists such thatfor each and 2. Main Results
Once more, we emphasize the fixed point theorem of Sehgal and Bharucha-Reid [
15] and its importance for fixed point investigations in the framework of probabilistic metric spaces. In the rest of this paper, it is not necessary to suppose that a triangle norm is Archimedean. It is a big challenge even today to find a weaker condition for the triangular norm than the triangular norm minimum, so that the Banach
q-contraction, as well as its generalizations, are valid. In the following theorems, we give an additional condition that enables this statement.
Theorem 2. Let be a complete generalized Menger probabilistic metric space such that and be a probabilistic Banach q-contraction such that for some and some , it satisfieswhere is a continuous, decreasing function such that . If the triangular norm τ satisfies the conditionwhere , then there is a unique fixed point z such that . Proof. Let
satisfy condition (
3) and define a sequence
. Then, by (
2), we have
Next, it is necessary to prove that
is a Cauchy sequence. Let
Because the series
is convergent, it follows that there exists
such that
Then, for each
and
, one has
Let
, and then
By (
3), there is
and
such that
i.e.,
Concretely, for
, we have
Choose
such that
Using (
5) and (
6) for
and
, it follows that
Let
be a constant such that
Then, using (
5) for
and
, we have
Based on the condition (
4), we conclude that
is a Cauchy sequence.
Let
. We want to show that
Using (
2), we have
Letting , we conclude that and so
Finally, we prove the uniqueness of fixed point. Indeed, suppose that there exists
such that
Then, from (
2), we have
which follows that
. □
Remark 3. In [26], the following statement was made: if condition (4) holds for some , then it holds for every Remark 4. Theorem 2 follows via the following condition (which treats triangular norms and distribution functions mutually),for every s-increasing sequence and every instead of conditions (3) and (4). It seems that condition (4) is more appropriate to deal with different types of triangular norms which is one of the main goals of the current paper. Let It is easy to check that condition (3) holds for distribution functions of half-normally or exponentially distributed random variables. Example 2. Let and . In view ofit follows that ξ is a probabilistic Banach q-contraction with . Condition (3) is fulfilled because of Let Then, and because the following equivalence holds,we conclude that all conditions of the previous theorem are satisfied and hence is the unique fixed point of ξ. Corollary 1. Let be a complete generalized Menger probabilistic metric space such that . Let be a probabilistic Banach q-contraction such that for some and some , it satisfieswhere is a continuous, decreasing function such that . If is a function such that for some the following is satisfied,and for some then there is a unique fixed point z of mapping ξ and Proof. Based on Proposition 3, condition implies and hence all conditions of the previous theorem are satisfied. □
The following corollary is a fuzzy metric version of Theorem 2.
Corollary 2. Let be a complete fuzzy metric space such that , and R is continuous at . Let be a probabilistic Banach q-contraction such that for some and some , it satisfies If for , then there exists a unique fixed point z of ξ and
Proof. If we choose , together with Lemma 1, then all conditions of Theorem 2 are satisfied. The proof is completed. □
As it is pointed out, we deal with triangular norms via condition (
4) and, therefore, in the following corollaries it will be relaxed (or omitted). By Theorem 2 and Proposition 2, it follows the subsequent corollary where the triangular norms of
h-type are used.
Corollary 3. Let be a complete generalized Menger probabilistic metric space such that and be a probabilistic Banach q-contraction such that for some and some , it satisfieswhere is a continuous, decreasing function such that . If the triangular norm τ is of h-type, then there is a unique fixed point z of ξ and . So, in the previous corollary we deal with a triangular norm of h-type, while in the next one is a strict triangular norm. Note that, for example, is not strict, while and are strict triangular norms.
Corollary 4. Let be a complete generalized Menger probabilistic metric space such that and the triangular norm τ is strict with additive generator (multiplicative generator . Let be a probabilistic Banach q-contraction and be a continuous, decreasing function with such that for some and some , it satisfiesIf there exits such thatthen there is a unique fixed point z of ξ and . Proof. Using Proposition 5, we conclude that all conditions of Theorem 2 are satisfied. □
Further, different contractive conditions are suggested instead of the Banach
q-contraction under the same class of triangular norms. The following conditions introduced in Theorem 2 are used, with the contractive condition in the spirit of one suggested in [
27].
Theorem 3. Let be a complete generalized Menger probabilistic metric space such that and the mapping satisfy the following contractive conditionfor some Suppose that for some and some , condition (3) is satisfied, where is a continuous, decreasing function such that . If the triangular norm τ satisfies condition (4), then there is a unique fixed point z of mapping ξ and . Proof. Take
determined in (
3) and define a sequence
Then, by (
7), we have
Since
leads to a contradiction, then we conclude that
Further, the proof that
is a Cauchy sequence is analogous as in Theorem 2 due to the conditions (
3) and (
4).
Let
Suppose that
Using (
7), we have
Letting , we obtain a contradiction on account of and so .
Finally, we prove the uniqueness of fixed point. To this end, suppose that there exists
such that
. Then, from (
7), we have
i.e.,
and so
. □
Example 3. Let and . We need to check condition (7), i.e., the relation is written as Due to the symmetric role of p and r without loss of generality, we suppose that and split the discussion into two cases, and If , we havewhile for , it follows thatand both inequalities are correct when . Condition (3) is fulfilled because for arbitrary and , one has Let . Then, and because the following equivalence holds,we conclude that all conditions of Theorem 3 are satisfied and is the unique fixed point of ξ. Remark 5. Condition (7) could be extended with term without changing the triangular norm, but if we want to add the symmetric term too, then the class of triangular norm must be narrowed. Theorem 4. Let be a complete Menger probabilistic metric space such that and be a mapping satisfyingfor some and every Suppose that for some and some condition (3) is satisfied, where is a continuous, decreasing function such that Then, there is a unique fixed point z of ξ and Theorem 5. Let be a complete Menger probabilistic metric space such that and be a mapping satisfying the following contractive condition,for some and every Suppose that for some and some condition (3) is satisfied where is a continuous, decreasing function such that If the triangular norm τ satisfieswhere , then there is a unique fixed point z of ξ and Theorem 6. Let be a complete Menger probabilistic metric space such that and be a mapping satisfyingfor some and every . Suppose that for some and some condition (3) is satisfied, where is a continuous, decreasing function such that If the triangular norm τ satisfies (4), then there is a unique fixed point z of ξ and . Proof. Let
satisfy condition (
3) and let
. By (
10), for
, we have
which implies that
Using conditions (
3) and (
4) as in Theorem 2, one could prove that
is a Cauchy sequence.
Let
and suppose that
. By (
10), we arrive at
for every
and
. If we take
in the last inequality, it follows that
that is,
.
Finally, we start to prove the uniqueness of fixed point. As a matter of fact, suppose that there exists
such that
. By (
7), we obtain
which means that
. □
Corollary 5. Let be a complete Menger probabilistic metric space such that and be a probabilistic Banach q-contraction, where . Suppose that, for some and some , condition (3) is satisfied, where is a continuous, decreasing function such that . If converges for , then there is a unique fixed point z of ξ such that Proof. Let and . By Proposition 4, and are equivalent, and then the assertion holds by Theorem 2. □
Remark 6. If , then the series converges to and the condition could be omitted by Corollary 5.
Theorem 7. Let be a complete Menger probabilistic metric space such that and be a probabilistic Banach q-contraction such that for some and some , it satisfieswhere is a continuous, decreasing function such that and is a function such that If, for some , the triangular norm τ satisfiesthen there is a unique fixed point z of ξ such that . Proof. Let and Then, and So, for some , we obtain .
Take
such that (
11) is fulfilled and, similar as in the proof of Theorem 2, for
, one has
By (
11), there exists
such that
Let
. Because
for
we have that
Now,
for
. So,
is a Cauchy sequence.
Because is a probabilistic Banach q-contraction (and consequently it is a continuous mapping), analogous as in the proof of Theorem 2, it follows that exists a unique fixed point . □
Remark 7. If we take that , then by Theorem 7 we obtain Theorem 3 from [26]. Corollary 6. Let be a complete Menger probabilistic metric space such that and be a probabilistic Banach q-contraction such that, for some and some , it satisfieswhere is a continuous, decreasing function such that . If converges for some , then there is a unique fixed point z of ξ such that Proof. Let By Proposition 4, is equivalent to and hence the assertion follows by Theorem 7. □
Remark 8. If , then the series converges when , so it is unnecessary to impose the condition in the previous corollary.