1. Introduction
Fractional order differential equations (FODEs) emerge in the scientific demonstration of numerous frameworks and different fields of science such as physics, chemistry, economics, polymer rheology, aerodynamics, electrodynamics of complicated medium, blood flow phenomena, biophysics, etc. (see [
1,
2,
3,
4,
5]). Recently, many authors have studied FODEs from different aspects, one is the numerical and scientific techniques for finding solutions and the other is the theoretical perspective of uniqueness and existence of solutions. The interest of the researchers in the investigation of FODEs lies in the incontrovertible fact that fractional-order models (FOM) are found to be highly realistic and practical, compared to the integer order models. Because there are additional degrees of opportunity in the FOM, in consequence, the subject of FODEs is gaining more attention from researchers. Another facet of research, which has been completely studied for integer order differential equations is devoted to uniqueness and existence of solutions to boundary value problems (BVPs). The mentioned aspect has been very well studied for FODEs, we refer the readers [
6,
7,
8,
9,
10]. Uniqueness and existence results of solutions to multi-point BVPs have been studied via classical fixed point theorems such as the Schauder fixed point theorem and the Banach contraction principle, see [
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16,
17].
FODEs under integral boundary conditions (IBCs) have been investigated very well because these type of equations are increasingly used in fluid-mechanics and dynamical problems. Jankowski [
18] studied the ordinary differential equation under IBCs given by
where
and
or
He developed a sufficient condition for iterative approximate solutions to the above problem.
Nanware and Dhaigude [
19] have investigated the aforementioned BVP under the IBCs for FODE as given by
where
is 1 or
and
,
is Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative of order
is defined in (
2). The aforementioned author also studied the iterative approximate solution to the above FODEs.
In the same line Cabada and Wang [
20] studied the following problem under IBCs as
where
,
and
are the continuous functions. Also we remark that
stands for Caputo’s fractional derivative.
Inspired from the aforementioned work, in this article we investigate a system of nonlinear FODEs with IBCs as
such that
,
, the functions
are continuous functions and
stand for Riemann-Liouville fractional derivatives is defined in (
2). We claim that such a system of FODEs are very rarely considered for stability as well as multiplicity results. Our analysis is devoted to the existence theory of a solution, multiplicity results and stability analysis of the suggested problem.
During the last few decades another part of research, which has been considered for FODEs and got much attention from the researchers is stability analysis. Numerous forms of stabilities have been studied in literature which are Mittag-Leffer stability, exponential stability, Lyapunov stability etc., we refer [
21,
22,
23].
The Ulam stability was first presented by Ulam in 1940 and then brilliantly explained by Hyers in 1941. For more information about HU stability, we refer [
24,
25]. The HU stability results were generalized and extended by many researchers for FODEs under IBCs. In 1978, Jung studied the said stability for ODEs. Oblaz, Benchohra, etc., have studied the said stability for FODEs but their investigation was limited to initial value problems, we refer to [
26,
27,
28]. To the best of our information and knowledge, the HU stability has been very rarely studied for coupled system of FODEs under IBCs. Therefore in this article we investigate HU stability to the considered problem. Here we remark that we also provide some necessary results for nonexistence of solution. Finally a series of examples are provided to support our analysis.
2. Axillary Results
In the current section, we review some fundamental definitions and useful results of functional analysis, fractional calculus and fixed point theory (see reference [
1,
2,
8,
29,
30,
31,
32]). Here, first of all, we define the Banach space which is utilized throughout in this article.
Let us define with the norm We define the norm for the product space as . Obviously is a Banach space.
Let
for each
, then, we define the cone
by
As in [
31], we define positive solution as follows.
Definition 1. A pair of functions is called a positive solution of problem (1) under the given IBCs if with on , where the functions satisfy the IBCs given in (1) respectively, for all . Definition 2. The Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative of order of a continuous function is defined aswhere and denotes the integer part of σ. Definition 3. The Riemann-Liouville fractions of integration of order of a continuous function is defined bywhere the integral is point-wise defined on . Lemma 1. Let , then the FODEhas a solution given by Lemma 3. [2] Let and , then the FODEhas a solution given bywhere for and . Definition 4. [32,33] On the Banach space defined afore, the mapping is called a generalized metric on if ∀, , and with , , , then the following hold ⇔, ∀
, ∀
, ∀
Further the pair is called a generalized metric space.
Definition 5. [32,33] Let , for any matrix the spectral radius is defined by , where for are the eigenvalues of the matrix and the matrix will converge to zero if . Lemma 4. [32,33] A complete generalized metric space with operator such that there ∃ a matrix withif , then has a fixed point in . Lemma 5. [32,33] Consider a Banach space with cone and is relatively open set with and be a completely continuous mapping. Then one of the following hold The mapping has a fixed point in
There exist and with .
Lemma 6. [33,34] Consider a cone in the Banach space and if and be two bounded open sets in , such that . Let be completely continuous operator and one of the following satisfied: ∀;, ∀
∀;, ∀
Then B has at least one fixed point in .
3. Existence of at Least One Solution
Lemma 7. Let , then the BVP
where
, has the following unique solution
where
is the Green’s function given by
Proof. Thanks to Lemma 3 for (
7), one has
By using initial condition
, we get
Therefore (
9) implies that
By using boundary condition
in (
10), we get
Hence we have the following solution to (
1)
Let
, then from Equation (
11), we have
implies Equation (
12), so we get
Replacing this valve in (
11), we get
where
is the Green’s function of BVP (
7). Similarly we can obtain
, where
is the Green’s function for the second equation of the system (
1) and is given by
□
Lemma 8. Let be the Green’s function of (1) defined in Equations (8) and (13). This has the given properties - (F1)
is continuous function on the unit square ∀
- (F2)
∀ and ∀
- (F3)
- (F4)
for each
where
Now according to Lemma 7, we can write system (
1) as follows
Let be the operator defined as
Then the fixed point of operator
coincides with the solution of the coupled system (
1).
Theorem 1. Consider that are continuous. Then is completely continuous, where is defined in (15). Proof. To prove that
, let
, then by Lemma 8, we have
and from
and
∀, we obtain
Also from
, we obtain
Thus from (
16) and (
17), we have
Similarly, one can write that
Hence we have
. Next, like the proof of Theorem 1 of [
35], and applying the Arzelà-Ascoli’s theorem, it can be easily proven that
is completely continuous □
Theorem 2. Consider that φ and χ are continuous on , and there exist that satisfy
for and
for and
where is a matrix given by
Then the system (1) has a unique positive solution . Proof. Let us define a generalized metric
by
Obviously
is a generalized complete metric space. Then for any
and using property
we get
Similarly we can show that
As
in the light of Lemma 4, system (
1) has a unique positive solution. □
Theorem 3. Consider that φ and χ are continuous on and there exist satisfying:
Then the system (1) has at least one positive solution in Proof. Define with
According to the Theorem 1, the operator
is completely continuous. Let
, such that
Then, we have
Similarly,
, thus
. Therefore, thanks to Lemma 5, we have
thus
. Let there exist
and
such that
Then in the light of assumptions
and by
of Lemma 8, we get
∀
which implies that
. Similarly, it can be proved that
. From which, we have
which is a contradiction that
as
. Thus, according to Lemma 5,
has at least one fixed point
. □
Next the following assumptions and notations will be used:
are continuous and uniformly with respect to on
defined in Lemma 8 satisfy
Theorem 4. If the assumptions hold and one of the following conditions is also satisfied:
Moreover, and
There exist two constants with such that and are nondecreasing on ∀
where defined in Lemma 8 and defined in Equations (18) and (19). Then the coupled system (1) has at least one positive solution. Proof. as defined in (
15) is completely continuous.
Case I. Let the condition
hold. Taking
then there exists a constant
such that
where
, and satisfies the conditions
So for
we have
Also for and there exists a constant say such that for where satisfies the conditions Let , then Now setting
So for any
we obtain
Similarly
, as
, thus we have
Case II. If assumptions in
hold, then in light of the definition of
for
, we have
. Then from
, we have
Similarly it can also be obtained that
for
, and we get
Also for
, we get that
for
. Then from
, one can get
Similarly, it can also obtained that
. Hence, we have
Now according to the application of Lemma 6 to (
20) and (
21) or (
22) and (
23) implies that
has a fixed point
or
such that
and
. From which it follows that the coupled system (
1) has at least one positive solution. □
Theorem 5. Under the conditions and if the following assumptions hold
If and
then the coupled system (1) has at least one positive solution. Further, if and where defined in Lemma 8 and defined in Equations (18) and (19), then the the considered system (1) has at least one positive solution. Proof. Proof can be obtained as proof of Theorem 4. □
4. Existence of More Than One Solutions
Theorem 6. Consider that hold and the following conditions are satisfied:
If and
Moreover, also hold:
there exists such that
and .
Then the coupled system (1) has at least two positive solutions such that Where
are defined in Lemma 8 and
defined in Equations (
18) and (
19)
Proof. Let
hold. Select
such that
. Now if
, then like the proof of Theorem 4, we have
Now, if
then like the proof of Theorem 4, we have
Also from
,
we get
Similarly, we have
as
. Hence, we have
Now according to Lemma 6 for (
25) and (
27), we have gives that
has a fixed point
and a fixed point in
Therefore system (
1) has at least two positive solutions
such that
and
. Thus the relation (
24) holds. □
Theorem 7. Consider that hold together with the given conditions
and and
there exist such thatsuch that
where defined in Lemma 8 and defined in Equations (18) and (19). Thus the system (1) has at least two positive solutions. Proof. We left the proof out, as it similar to the proof of Theorem 6. □
In same line for multiple solutions we give the following results.
Theorem 8. Let hold. If there exist positive numbers with and , such that
for and for and
where defined in Lemma 8.
Then the coupled system (1) has at least -positive solutions satisfying Theorem 9. Suppose that holds. If there exist positive numbers , with such that
φ and χ are non-decreasing on ∀
Hence we conclude that there exist at least positive solutions corresponding to coupled system (1) which satisfy 6. Example
To verify the aforesaid established analysis we provide some test problems here in the given sequel.
Example 1. Take the system of given BVPs with IBCs as Since
Also as , and
Thenwhere , so one can get We get and since . Therefore due to Theorem 2, BVPs (34) has a unique positive solution given bywhere and are the Green’s functions given by Further, by the use of Theorem 11, the solution is HU-stable.
Example 2. Taking a system of FODEs with IBCs as From the given system one hasand Also are continuous. Now , similarly
Obviously we compute Hence due to Theorem 4, system (36) has at least one positive solution. Example 3. Taking another test problem with IBCs as From the considered problem (37), one has as It is easy to see that and . Therefore thanks to Theorem 5, the given system (37) has a positive solution. Example 4. Further we take another system of FODEs with IBCs aswhere and It is easy to obtain and Further , we have Hence all the conditions of Theorem 6 hold. Thanks to Theorem 6, the given system (38) has at least two positive solutions and which satisfy