1. Introduction
In the last few decades, one of the hot topics in topology and analysis has been the quasi-metric, which is a natural generalization of the notion of the metric; see, e.g., [
1,
2,
3,
4]. Roughly speaking, the quasi-metric appears to be obtained by relaxing the symmetric condition from the axioms of the standard metric. Regarding the physical phenomena, the quasi-metric can be more useful to consider in solving real-life problems [
5]. On the other hand, one can ask an impulsive question about whether there is a positive constant
such that the distance from a point
p to
q is dominated by
times the distance from
q to
p. The answer is affirmative, and such spaces are called the
-symmetric quasi-metric. These spaces are quite rich and lie between the quasi-metric and metric.
Quasi-metric spaces are very interesting topics for researchers who work in fixed point theory; see, e.g., [
6,
7] and the references therein. It is an indispensable fact that real-life applications of fixed point theory have a wide range. Indeed, the border of the range is beyond the following question: Do we transfer the real-life problems in the form of
or not? Consequently, after the first metric fixed point result of Banach, several authors have reported a number of interesting results in various directions. Here, we mention one of the interesting generalization of the Banach contraction mapping principle that was given by Seghal [
8].
Theorem 1. ([8]) Let be a complete metric space and T a continuous self-mapping of , which satisfies the condition that there exists a real number q, such that for each , there exists a positive integer such that for each , Then, T has a unique fixed point in .
This result above was improved by Guseman [
9] by removing the continuity condition. Later, K.Iseki [
10], J. Matkowski [
11], Singh [
12] and Ray and Rhoades [
13] extended the result of Seghal [
8]. The result of Kincses and Totik [
14] is one of the most improved results in this direction.
Theorem 2. ([14]) Let T be a self-mapping on a metric space such that for some and for all , we can find a positive integer such that: Then, T has a unique fixed point .
Theorem 3. ([14]) Let T be a self-map of a metric space . Assume there exists a nonincreasing function such that for each , there exists a positive integer such that for each with , Then, T has a unique fixed point .
The inflation of so many results causes a commotion. Therefore, it is natural to consider combining and unifying the existence results. The notion of the simulation function is one of the successful consequences of this approach. By using the simulation function, it is possible to combine several distinct types of contractions and hence unify a number of existing results in a single theorem.
In this paper, we aim to get not only the most general metric fixed point results in the context of quasi-metric space, but also unify the several existing results in this direction, including the results of Seghal [
8], Guseman [
9], Kincses and Totik [
14].
2. Preliminaries
We denote the set of non-negative reals by .
Definition 1. For , a function is called quasi-metric if the following assumptions are held:
;
, for all .
Here, the pair is called a quasi-metric space.
The quasi-metric notion is a concrete extension of the metric concept. Therefore, as expected, each metric space forms a quasi-metric space, but the converse is not necessarily true. For instance, the well-known functions , defined by and , are quasi-metric, but not a metric. Indeed, forms a standard Euclidean metric on .
A sequence
in
converges to
if:
In a quasi-metric space
, the limit for a convergent sequence is unique. If
, we have for all
:
Let be a quasi-metric space and be a sequence in . We say that a sequence is left-Cauchy if for every , there exists a positive integer such that for all . Analogously, a sequence is called right-Cauchy if for every , there exists a positive integer such that for all . Furthermore, the sequence is said to be Cauchy if for every , there exists a positive integer such that for all . It is evident that a sequence in a quasi-metric space is Cauchy if and only if it is left-Cauchy and right-Cauchy. A quasi-metric space is left-complete (respectively, right-complete, complete) if each left-Cauchy sequence (respectively, right-Cauchy sequence, Cauchy sequence) in is convergent.
Definition 2. Suppose that is a quasi-metric space, and and . Let T be a self-mapping.We say that T is:
- (i)
right-continuous if whenever ;
- (ii)
left-continuous if whenever ;
- (iii)
continuous if whenever .
Observe that the simultaneous right and left continuity of a mapping yields the continuity of it.
Definition 3. Suppose that is a quasi-metric space. We say that it is Δ
-symmetric if there exists a positive real number such that: It is clear that if , then the -symmetric quasi-metric space forms a metric space.
Example 1. Suppose that is a quasi-metric space, and a function is defined as follows: is a three-symmetric quasi-metric space, but it is not a metric space.
In the following, we recall the main properties of -symmetric quasi-metric spaces.
Lemma 1. (See, e.g., [15]) Let be a Δ
-symmetric quasi-metric space and be a sequence in and . Then: - (i)
right-converges to s ⇔ left-converges to s ⇔ converges to x.
- (ii)
is right-Cauchy ⇔ is left-Cauchy ⇔ is Cauchy.
- (iii)
If is a sequence in and , then .
A non-decreasing function
is called a comparison function (see, e.g., [
16]) if:
, for .
Proposition 1. (See, e.g., [16]) Let be a comparison function. Then, we have: - (A)
ψ is continuous at zero.
- (B)
For , each also forms a comparison function.
- (Γ)
for all .
A non-decreasing function is called a c-comparison if
, for all .
We reserve the letter
to denote the family of all
c-comparison functions. Note that each
c-comparison function forms a comparison function. For more details and examples for comparison and
c-comparison functions, see, e.g., [
16,
17].
Let be a c-comparison function that satisfies the following condition:
.
We shall use the letter to represent the class of such functions (i.e., the set of all c-comparison functions that satisfies the condition ).
In what follows, we recollect the definition of the simulation function.
Definition 4. See, e.g., [18]. Suppose that fulfills: for all ;
if are sequences in such that , then: Then, ζ is called a simulation function. Further, the letter denotes all simulation functions ζ.
We underline the fact that the condition is superfluous. Due to the axiom , we have: For more details and examples on simulation functions, see, e.g., [
6,
7,
19,
20,
21,
22].
The notions of an
-admissible mapping [
23] and triangular
-admissible mappings [
24] were refined by Popescu [
25] as follows:
Definition 5. [25] Let be a mapping and . A self-mapping is said to be an α-orbital admissible if for all , we have: Furthermore, α-orbital admissible mapping T is called triangular α-orbital admissible if the following condition holds:
- (TO)
and implies that , for all .
Each
-admissible mapping is an
-orbital admissible mapping. For more details and interesting examples, see, e.g., [
21,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32,
33,
34,
35].
A set is regular with respect to mapping if is a sequence in such that for all n and as , then for all n.
The following technical lemma will be used in the proof of the first main result of this paper.
Lemma 2. Let be a non-empty set and form a triangular α-orbital admissible mapping. Consider the iterative sequence . If there exists such that , then for any , we have:and:for all Proof. Due to the statement of the theorem, there exists a point
such that
. Based on the definition of the iterative sequence
and taking into account that
T is
-orbital admissible, we get:
Recursively, we derive that:
On the other side, using the condition (TO) of Definition 5, we deduce that:
Recursively, for all
, we have:
☐
Definition 6. Let be a function. We say that a self-mapping satisfies the condition (U) if:for all . 3. Main Results
We state our first main results.
Theorem 4. Let be a complete Δ
-symmetric quasi-metric space, T be a continuous self-mapping and , , . Suppose that for every , there is a positive integer such that the inequality:is fulfilled for all . Moreover, assume that: - (i)
T forms a triangular α-orbital admissible;
- (ii)
there exists with the property and ;
Then, T has a fixed point .
Proof. Fix
. By assumption, there exist
such that for all
:
Regarding the condition
, we find:
which yields that:
Now, we shall define
and
as follows:
for any
.
In what follows, we shall show that and .
First of all, for a given
, we set
and:
Due to , there exists , with such that for all . Notice that .
Now, we claim that there exist
, with
such that:
Observe that the assumption (
18) holds for
. On the contrary, we suppose that there is a positive integer
k so that:
Regarding the triangle inequality, together with the inequalities (
16) and (
12), we have that:
Taking, the assumption (
19) into account and keeping
in mind, we get:
This is a contradiction, since we already supposed that , and we have due to . Hence, the set is bounded. Due to fact that , we conclude that the set is bounded, and so, .
On the other hand, the space
is the
-symmetric, so, for all
and
, we have:
From here, we conclude that the set
is also bounded and
. Therefore, for all
and all
,
which shows that the orbit
is a bounded subset of
.
Now, let
be an arbitrary point. If
, then
forms a fixed point of
T, which completes the proof. Hence, we assume that
. Starting from
, we construct inductively a sequence
, by:
where
. Since:
by induction, we deduce that:
which means that
is a subsequence of the orbit
. Furthermore, we observe that:
We shall prove that
is right-Cauchy and left-Cauchy in
. First of all, notice that from (
20),
for any
and replacing
and
in (
16), we get:
Hence, since
is increasing, we obtain that:
By using the triangular inequality and (
24), for all
, we get:
However, assuming that
, we have
, and by
, the series
is convergent and then
. Therefore, for an arbitrary
, there exists
such that
for all
, and from (
25),
which ensures that
is a right-Cauchy sequence. On account of Lemma 1, we derive that
is a left-Cauchy sequence in
. Therefore, it is Cauchy in the complete quasi-metric space
. It yields that there exists
such that:
For the rest of the proof, we consider that is the sequence defined above and u is the limit of this sequence.
Since
T is continuous, by using the property
we derive that:
and:
Keeping (
26) and (
29) in mind together with the uniqueness of a limit, we conclude that
, that is
u is a fixed point of
T. ☐
In the following theorem, we remove the assumption of the continuity of the mapping T.
Theorem 5. Let be a complete Δ
-symmetric quasi-metric space, T be a self-mapping and , , . Suppose that for every , there is a positive integer such that the inequality:is fulfilled for all . Suppose also that: - (i)
T is a triangular α-orbital admissible;
- (ii)
there exists such that and ;
- (iii)
is α-regular.
Then, T has a fixed point . Furthermore:
- (a)
for each , ;
- (b)
the mapping is continuous at u.
Proof. As in Theorem 4, we can construct an iterative sequence
that converges to a point
, which means that:
We claim, under the assumption that
is
-regular, that
u is a fixed point of
, that is
. First of all, replacing in (
30)
and
, we have for
:
or, keeping in mind
,
Taking into account that
is monotone increasing, we can write the chain of inequalities:
Note that
is a
c-comparison function, and hence, it satisfies
condition. Thus, we get that:
Furthermore, from (
35) and Lemma 1, we have:
By contradiction, we assume that , and let and . Without loss of generality, we suppose that .
Again, since
,
holds, which means that:
From (
31) and respectively (
36), there exists
such that for any
, there hold:
If
is regular with respect to
, then there exists a subsequence
of
such that
for all
k and using the triangle inequality, we obtain:
which is a contradiction. As a consequence,
.
Let us show now that uis the fixed point for
T. Since
is
-regular, using the triangle inequality, we have:
Letting
, together with (
31) and (
35), we obtain:
Hence, . Moreover, since the space is -symmetric, , then , so u is a fixed point of T.
We are demonstrating now (a). To begin, we claim that
, for each
. For this purpose, let
be fixed, and let
be arbitrary. For all
,
Since
is monotone increasing, repeatedly applying the previous inequality, we obtain:
Since
and
s are fixed, we have
, which implies that:
If we do , we conclude that . Taking Lemma 1 into account, we get that and also .
Finally, we prove that the statement (b) holds. For this purpose, we will show that
where
is an arbitrary sequence in
such that:
Assume, by contradiction, that there exists some
such that:
Replacing in (
30), we have:
Since
and using the
-regularity of
, we have:
which is a contradiction. As a consequence,
. Since
for all
, we get that
, and therefore:
which means that
is continuous at
. ☐
We notice that to guarantee the uniqueness, we need to add an additional condition.
Theorem 6. Adding the condition (U): If u is a fixed point of for any , to the statement of Theorem 4, respectively 5, we obtain the uniqueness of the fixed point.
Proof. By Theorem 4, we know that
has at least one fixed point. We suppose that there exists
such that
. Then, due the condition (U):
which is a contradiction.
In this case, it is obvious that which shows that is a fixed point of T, and due to its uniqueness, we conclude that . ☐
Example 2. Let , , defined by: It easy to see that is a complete two-symmetric quasi-metric space. Let ,and , We shall prove that T satisfies the conditions of Theorem 5. If , then and . Furthermore, if , then and . Hence, T is an α-orbital mapping. For , we consider the following cases:
- (a)
If , then , and ;
- (b)
If , then , and ;
- (c)
If , then , and ;
- (d)
If , since ,
Therefore, T is a triangular α-orbital admissible mapping, so the assumption (i) of Theorem 5 is satisfied.
Remark 1. We remark that, since and , T is not triangular α-admissible mapping.
Further, Condition (ii) is satisfied, since . Moreover, if is a sequence in such that for all and , then and for all n. Hence, is α-regular. Due to the manner in which we defined the function α, the following cases are the interesting ones, letting, for example and .
- (1)
For , , we have and . If , then and . Thus, (14) becomes: which holds for any . If , then and . In this case, holds also for any .
- (2)
For , , we have , , and . Hence, - (3)
For , , we have , , and . Hence, - (4)
For and , we have , , so . Hence,
Therefore, for any , there exists , for example , such that for every , all assumptions of Theorem 4 are satisfied. Then, T has a (unique) fixed point . On the other hand, , and imply . Hence T is not a contraction. Moreover, we cannot find the functions , such that:This shows that Theorem 5 is indeed a generalization of known results. Theorem 7. Let be a complete Δ
-symmetric quasi-metric space, a self-mapping T and a map . Suppose that there exist , such that for every , there is a positive integer such that for all :for each , where: Assume that:
- (i)
T forms a triangular α-orbital admissible;
- (ii)
there is such that and ;
- (iii)a
either, is α-regular,
- (iii)b
or, T is continuous.
Then, T has a fixed point . Furthermore, for each , .
Proof. We remark firstly that if
, then there exist
such that for all
:
or, with
in mind,
The functions
and
, defined by (
17), are finite, which is observed by following step by step the lines in the proof of Theorem 4. By substituting
s by
and
y by
in (
45) and taking
into account, we have:
where:
Denoting by
for
, from the triangle inequality, we have:
and combining with (
46), we get, for any
:
Following the reasoning in the previous theorem, notice that we can find
, with
such that
for all
. We shall prove that
for all
. For this, we assume, on the contrary, namely, that there exists a positive integer
i such that
. We have then:
or
, which is a contradiction. Therefore, the set
is bounded and
. Since the space
is
-symmetric, we have for all
and all
that:
which shows that the set
is also bounded. Hence,
.
Let
be arbitrary. We will show now that the sequence
constructed inductively by:
is a Cauchy sequence. By this construction of sequence
, it follows that for any
and
,
If we denote by
, using the condition (
42) or, equivalently, (
45), for
and
, we have:
where:
Let us now have a positive integer
such that
. Replace in (
50):
Hence,
is monotone increasing, and we obtain that:
for
. However,
is a
c-comparison function, and from
, there exist
such that,
for any
. Hence,
for arbitrary
and
. We conclude that
is a right-Cauchy sequence on
. Since
is supposed to be
-symmetric, then, from Lemma 1, it is a Cauchy sequence. As the space is complete, there exists
such that
, which means that:
If we use the hypothesis that the map
T is continuous, we obtain:
that is,
u is a fixed point of
T.
We want to show now that
, that is
u is a fixed point of
, under the assumption that
is
-regular. First, we show that:
and:
By proceeding as above, from (
45), we get:
where
is an appropriate index such that
. Using the same arguments as previously given and taking into account that
is monotone increasing, we obtain that:
Therefore, indeed, (
54) holds. We remark than from Lemma 1, also (
55) holds. Let
be arbitrary chosen. Then, there exists
such that for any
, the following hold:
Consequently, since
is
-regular, and
, we have:
Thus, it follows that
. We claim now that
, for each
, that is
. For
fixed and
,
If
, then:
which is a contradiction. Hence,
. Since
,
is a comparison function, we obtain:
where
and
are fixed. Using Lemma 1, we obtain that, for any
,
☐
Next, we shall show the uniqueness of the obtained fixed point of T, defined in Theorem 7. In order to prove the uniqueness of the fixed point, we propose the following condition:
- (U)
If u is a fixed point of for any , .
Theorem 8. Besides all assumptions of Theorem 7, suppose that the condition (U) is satisfied. Then, T has a unique fixed point.
Proof. The existence of a fixed point is observed by Theorem 7. For the proof of the uniqueness, we use the method of reductio ad absurdum. Let
be two fixed points of
with
. Then, we have from hypotheses
that
and:
which is a contradiction. Hence,
u is the unique fixed point for
. Then,
implies that
, which shows that
u is the unique fixed point of T. ☐
Example 3. Let , , defined by: Then, is a two-symmetric quasi-metric space. Let , , , , and be defined by if and otherwise. Since: T is α-orbital admissible. Furthermore, it is easy to check that T is triangular α-orbital admissible, but is not triangular α admissible, since, for example, Notice that, for , we have . Hence, for any , such that for every , there is a positive integer (for example, any ) such that for all , all conditions of Theorem 7 are satisfied, and is the fixed point of T. We notice that T is not a contraction, since for example, for and , we have:for all .