1. Introduction
We examine the system of fractional differential equations
subject to the nonlocal coupled boundary conditions
where
,
,
,
,
,
denotes the Hilfer–Hadamard fractional derivative of order
and type
(for
and
),
represents the Hadamard fractional derivative of order
(for
,
and
), the continuous functions
f and
g are defined on
, and the integrals from the boundary conditions (
2) are Riemann–Stieltjes integrals with
,
,
and
functions of bounded variation.
In this paper, we present a variety of conditions for the functions
f and
g such that problem (
1) and (
2) has at least one solution. We will write our problem as an equivalent system of integral equations, and then we will associate it with an operator whose fixed points are our solutions. The proof of our primary outcomes involves the utilization of diverse fixed point theorems. Noteworthy among these theorems are the Banach contraction mapping principle, the Krasnosel’skii fixed point theorem applied to the sum of two operators, the Schaefer fixed point theorem, and the Leray–Schauder nonlinear alternative. The nonlocal boundary conditions (
2) are general ones, and they include different particular cases. For example, if
, for
,
and
, then the Hadamard derivative
coincides with
. If one of the order of the Hadamard derivatives from the right-hand side of the relations from (
2) is zero (for example, if
is zero), then the term
becomes
, which contains the cases of the multi-point boundary conditions for the function
u (if
is a step function); a classical integral condition; a combination of them; or even a Hadamard fractional integral for a special form of
(as we mentioned in [
1]). If
and
is a step function, then
, which is a combination of the Hadamard fractional derivatives of function
u in various points. If all functions
and
are constant functions, then the boundary conditions become uncoupled boundary conditions (where the Hadamard derivative of order
of the function
u in the point
T is dependent only of the derivatives
of the function
u, and the Hadamard derivative of order
of the function
v in the point
T is dependent only of the derivatives
of function
v), and if
and
are constant functions, then the boundary conditions become purely coupled boundary conditions (in which the Hadamard derivative of order
of the function
u in
T is dependent only of the derivatives
of the function
v, and the Hadamard derivative of order
of the function
v in
T is dependent only of the derivatives
of the function
u).
Next, we will introduce some papers that are relevant to the issue posed by Equations (
1) and (
2). In [
2], the authors investigated the existence and uniqueness of solutions for the Hilfer–Hadamard fractional differential equation with nonlocal boundary conditions
where
,
,
,
is a continuous function,
is the Hadamard fractional integral operator of order
, and
for
,
,
. The multi-valued version of problem (
3) is also studied. For the proof of the main results, they used differing fixed point theorems. In [
3], the authors proved the existence of solutions for the system of sequential Hilfer–Hadamard fractional differential equations supplemented with boundary conditions
where
,
, and
are given continuous functions.
In paper [
4], Hadamard defined a fractional derivative with a kernel involving a logarithmic function with an arbitrary exponent. In [
5], Hilfer introduced a new fractional derivative (known as the Hilfer fractional derivative), which is a generalization of the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative and the Caputo fractional derivative. Some applications of this new fractional derivative are presented in papers [
6,
7]. The Hilfer–Hadamard fractional derivative is an interpolation of the Hadamard fractional derivative, and it covers the cases of the Riemann–Liouville–Hadamard and Caputo–Hadamard fractional derivatives (see the definition in
Section 2). The distinctive aspects of our presented challenge, (
1) and (
2), emerge from the exploration of a set of Hilfer–Hadamard fractional differential equations encompassing diverse orders and types. Additionally, the introduction of general nonlocal boundary conditions (
2) contributes novelty, extending beyond numerous specific instances as previously observed. To the best of our knowledge, this issue represented by Equations (
1) and (
2) is a novel problem in the literature. Our theorems represent original contributions and make substantial advancements in the realm of coupled systems involving Hilfer–Hadamard fractional derivatives. Although the techniques employed in demonstrating our primary findings in
Section 3 are conventional, their adaptation to address our problem (
1) and (
2) is innovative. For more recent investigations concerning Hadamard, Hilfer, and Hilfer–Hadamard fractional differential equations and their applications, we recommend the monograph [
8] and the following papers: [
1,
9,
10,
11,
12,
13,
14,
15,
16,
17,
18,
19,
20,
21,
22,
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28].
The structure of the paper unfolds as follows: In
Section 2, we offer definitions and properties related to fractional derivatives, along with a result regarding the existence of solutions for the linear boundary value problem linked to Equations (
1) and (
2). Moving on,
Section 3 is dedicated to the core findings concerning the existence and uniqueness of solutions for problem (
1) and (
2). Subsequently, in
Section 4, we provide illustrative examples that demonstrate the practical application of our theorems. Lastly, concluding insights for this paper can be found in
Section 5.
3. Existence Results
In this section, we will give the main existence and uniqueness theorems for the solutions of problem (
1) and (
2). By using Lemma 2, our problem (
1) and (
2) can be equivalently written as the following system of integral equations
where
.
We consider the Banach
with the supremum norm
and the Banach space
with the norm
. We define the operator
,
, with
given by
for all
and
. We see that the solutions of problem (
1) and (
2) (or system (
22) are the fixed points of operator
. So, next, we will investigate the existence of the fixed points of this operator
in the space
.
We present now the basic assumptions that we will use in the next results.
- (H1)
;
;
;
;
are bounded variation functions, for all
,
,
,
;
, and
(given by (
11)).
We also introduce the constants
Our first existence and uniqueness theorem for problem (
1) and (
2) is the following one, which is based on the Banach contraction mapping principle (see [
30]).
Theorem 2. We assume that assumption holds. In addition, we suppose that the functions are continuous and satisfy the condition
- (H2)
There exist , such thatfor all and , .
Ifwhere , , then the boundary value problem (1) and (2) has a unique solution Proof. We will verify that operator
is a contraction in the space
. We denote this by
and
. By using
, we find
for all
and
. We consider now the positive number
and let the set
.
We will show firstly that
. Indeed, for this, let
. Then, we obtain
So, we find
In a similar manner, we obtain
Then, by condition (
26) and relations (
30) and (
31), we deduce
So,
.
Next, we will prove that operator
is a contraction. For this, let
. Then, for any
we obtain
Therefore, we find
In a similar manner, we obtain
Then, by relations (
34) and (
35), we deduce
By (
26), we conclude that operator
is a contraction. Therefore, operator
has a unique fixed point by the Banach contraction mapping principle. Hence, problem (
1) and (
2) has a unique solution
. □
The next two results for the existence of solutions of problem (
1) and (
2) are based on the Krasnosel’skii fixed point theorem for the sum of two operators (see [
31]).
Theorem 3. We suppose that assumptions and hold. In addition, we assume that the functions are continuous and satisfy the following condition:
- (H3)
There exist the continuous functions , () such that
Ifthen problem (1) and (2) has at least one solution . Proof. We consider the number
satisfying the condition
and the closed ball
. We will verify the assumptions of the Krasnosel’skii fixed point theorem for the sum of two operators. We split operator
, defined on
, as
,
,
, where
are defined by
for all
and
.
We will prove firstly that
for all
. For this, let
. Then, we obtain
and
Then, by (
41) and (
42), we deduce
Next, we will prove that operator
is a contraction mapping. Indeed, for all
, we find
Therefore, by (
44), we obtain
By condition (
38), we conclude that operator
is a contraction.
Operators
,
, and
are continuous by the continuity of functions
f and
g. In addition,
is uniformly bounded on
because
and then
We finally prove that operator
is compact. Let
,
. Then, for all
, we find
which tends to zero as
, independently of
. We also have
which tends to zero as
, independently of
.
Hence, by using (
48) and (
49), we obtain that operators
,
, and
are equicontinuous. By the Arzela–Ascoli theorem, we deduce that
is compact on
. Therefore, by the Krasnosel’skii fixed point theorem ([
31]), we conclude that problem (
1) and (
2) has at least one solution
. □
Theorem 4. We suppose that assumption holds and the functions are continuous and satisfy assumptions and . Ifthen problem (1) and (2) has at least one solution . Proof. As in the proof of Theorem 3, we consider the positive number
and the closed ball
. We also split operator
, defined on
, as
,
,
, where
are defined by (
40).
For
, we obtain as in the proof of Theorem 3, that
We will prove next that the operator
is a contraction. Indeed, we find
Then, we deduce
that is, by (
50), operator
is a contraction.
Operators
, and
are continuous by the continuity of the functions
f and
g. Moreover,
is uniformly bounded on
because we have
and
Therefore, by (
54) and (
55), we obtain
and then
We finally prove that operator
is compact. Let
,
. Then, for all
, we find
which tends to zero as
, independently of
. We also obtain
which tends to zero as
, independently of
.
So, by using inequalities (
58) and (
59), we obtain that operators
,
, and
are equicontinuous. By the Arzela–Ascoli theorem, we conclude that
is compact on
. Then, by applying the Krasnosel’skii fixed point theorem (see [
31]), we deduce that problem (
1) and (
2) has at least one solution
. □
Our next result is based on the Schaefer fixed point theorem (see [
32]).
Theorem 5. We assume that assumption holds. In addition, we suppose that the functions are continuous and satisfy the following condition:
- (H4)
There exist positive constants such that
Then, there exists at least one solution for problem (1) and (2). Proof. Firstly, we show that
is completely continuous. Operator
is continuous. Indeed, let
,
,
, as
in
. Then, for each
, we obtain
and
Because
f and
g are continuous, we find
as
, for all
. So, by relations (
61)–(
63), we deduce
and then
, as
; i.e.,
is a continuous operator.
We prove now that
maps bounded sets into bounded sets in
. For
, let
. Then, by using (
60) and similar computations to those in the first part of the proof of Theorem 2, we obtain
for all
and
. Then, by (
65), we conclude
i.e.,
is bounded.
In the following, we will prove that
maps bounded sets into equicontinuous sets. For this, let
,
, and
. Then, by using similar computations to those in the proofs of Theorems 3 and 4, we find
independently of
, and
independently of
.
Therefore, by using relations (
67) and (
68), we obtain that operators
and
are equicontinuous, and so,
is equicontinuous. So, the operator
is completely continuous, by using the Arzela–Ascoli theorem.
Finally, we show that set
is bounded. Let
, i.e., there exists
such that
or
and
for all
. Then, by
, we obtain in a similar manner as that used in the first part of this proof that
and then
This shows that the set
is bounded. Therefore, by the Schaefer fixed point theorem (see [
32]), we deduce that operator
has at least one fixed point. Hence, problem (
1) and (
2) has at least one solution. □
In our last existence result, we will use the Leray–Schauder nonlinear alternative (see [
33]).
Theorem 6. We suppose that assumption holds. Moreover, we assume that the functions are continuous, and the following conditions are satisfied:
- (H5)
There exist the functions and the functions nondecreasing in each of both variables such that - (H6)
There exists a positive constant L such that
Then, the fractional boundary value problem (1) and (2) has at least one solution . Proof. We define the set
, where
L is the constant given by (
72). The operator
is completely continuous.
We assume that there exist
such that
for some
. Then, we find
for all
, and, therefore,
So, we obtain
which, based on (
72), is a contradiction.
We deduce that there is no
such that
for some
. Therefore, by the Leray–Schauder nonlinear alternative (see [
33]), we conclude that
has a fixed point
, which is a solution of problem (
1) and (
2). □
4. Examples
In this section, we will present some examples that illustrate our theorems obtained in
Section 3.
We consider , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and .
In addition, we introduce the following functions
We consider the system of fractional differential equations
subject to the nonlocal coupled boundary conditions
After some computations, using the Mathematica program, we obtain , , , , , , and . So, assumption is satisfied.
In addition, we find , , , and .
Example 1. We consider the functions
for all
and
.
We have
for all
and
,
. So, we find
,
,
,
(from assumption
), and then
and
. Because
, then condition (
26) is satisfied. Therefore, by Theorem 2, we conclude that the boundary value problem (
77) and (
78) with the nonlinearities (
79) has a unique solution
.
Example 2. We consider the functions
for all
and
.
We have the following inequalities
for all
and
, and
for all
and
. So
,
,
,
, and so
and
. So, assumptions
and
are satisfied. In addition, we obtain
and
. Then, we find
, i.e., condition (
38) is also satisfied. By Theorem 3, we deduce that problem (
77) and (
78) with the nonlinearities (
81) has at least one solution
.
Example 3. We consider the functions
for all
and
. We obtain
and
, for all
and
. So,
and
(from assumption
). By Theorem 5, we conclude that the boundary value problem (
77) and (
78) with the nonlinearities (
84) has at least one solution
.
Example 4. We consider the functions
for all
and
. We have the inequalities
for all
and
. So, we find
,
,
,
, for all
and
, and then assumption
is satisfied. In addition, we obtain
and
. The condition from assumption
becomes
So, if
, then assumption
is also satisfied. Therefore, by Theorem 6, we deduce the existence of at least one solution
for problem (
77) and (
78) with the nonlinearities (
85).
5. Conclusions
In this paper, we investigated the existence and uniqueness of solutions for a system of fractional differential equations denoted as (
1). These equations are subject to nonlocal boundary conditions as specified in (
2). System (
1) encompasses Hilfer–Hadamard fractional derivatives that vary in orders and types, while the conditions (
2) are nonlocal, featuring a combination of Riemann–Stieltjes integrals and Hadamard derivatives with varying orders. It is worth noting that these conditions are general ones, encompassing scenarios that range from uncoupled boundary conditions (in the event that all functions
for
and
for
are constants) to more complex cases that generalize multi-point boundary conditions, classical integral conditions, and various combinations thereof. In
Section 2, we have provided an existence theorem for the linear fractional differential problem associated with (
1) and (
2). In
Section 3, we have presented our primary findings, supported by rigorous proofs in which we have employed various fixed point theorems. These theorems include the Banach contraction mapping principle (applied to prove Theorem 2), the Krasnosel’skii fixed point theorem for the sum of two operators (utilized in proving Theorems 3 and 4), the Schaefer fixed point theorem (employed for Theorem 5), and the Leray–Schauder nonlinear alternative (used to establish Theorem 6). Finally, in
Section 4, we have provided several illustrative examples to elucidate the implications of our main existence results. Going forward, our aim is to investigate different sets of fractional equations, which include fractional derivatives of various kinds and are subject to diverse boundary conditions.