twin positive solutions for three-point boundary value problems of higher-order differential equations两个正解的高阶微分方程三点边值问题.pdf

IJMMS 2004:39, 2049–2063 PII. S0161171204309063 © Hindawi Publishing Corp. TWIN POSITIVE SOLUTIONS FOR THREE-POINT BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS OF HIGHER-ORDER DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS YUJI LIU and WEIGAO GE Received 7 September 2003 A new fixed point theorem on cones is applied to obtain the existence of at least two positive solutions of a higher-order three-point boundary value problem for the differential equation subject to a class of boundary value conditions. The associated Green’s function is given. Some results obtained recently are generalized. 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification: 34B10. 1. Introduction. The multipoint boundary value problems for ordinary differential equations arise in a variety of different areas of applied mathematics and physics. Linear and nonlinear second-order multipoint boundary value problems have been studied by several authors, we refer the reader to [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15] and the references therein. Consider the nth-order two-point boundary value problem y (n) +f t,y(t) = 0, 0 t 1, (1.1) y (i) (0) = 0, 0 ≤ i ≤ n −2, y (n−1) (1) = 0. Recently, there have been some papers [ 1, 2, 3, 13, 14] discussing the existence of pos- itive solutions for the BVP ( 1.1) by using the Guo-Krasnoselskii fixed-point theorem, that is, the expansion/compression-type fixed-point theorem on cones. It was proved that (1.1) has at least one positive solution under certain assumptions (f is sublinear or sup- linear). Agarwal and O’Regan in [3] established the criteria of the existence of two pos- itive solutions of BVP ( 1.1) when f0 =limx →0 f (t,x)/x =f∞ =limx →+∞ f (t,x)/x =