1. Introduction
We consider a nonlinear system of
-Hilfer fractional differential equations:
supplemented with coupled mixed boundary conditions containing
-derivative and integral operators
where
represents the
-Hilfer fractional derivative operator of order
and parameter
with
and
such that
,
and
are
-Riemann–Liouville fractional integrals of order
, respectively, and
The objective of the present work is to develop the existence theory for the Problem (
1) and (
2) via the tools of the fixed point theory. A uniqueness result for the Problem (
1) and (
2) is proved by means of a fixed point theorem due to Banach, while the Leray–Schauder alternative and Krasnosel’skiĭ’s fixed-point theorem are applied to derive the two existence results for the problem at hand. The results established in this paper will contribute significantly to the literature on coupled
-Hilfer fractional differential systems, which is indeed scarce and needs to be enriched and extended further in several directions.
Boundary value problems involving different kinds of fractional derivative operators such as Caputo–Liouville, Riemann–Liouville,
-Riemann–Liouville [
1], Hilfer [
2],
k-Riemann–Liouville,
-Riemann–Liouville [
3],
-Hilfer [
4], etc., have been addressed by several authors. Some recent results on nonlocal multipoint single-valued and multi-valued boundary value problems containing Hilfer and Caputo–Hadamard type fractional derivative operators can be found in the papers [
5,
6,
7]. For preliminary concepts of fractional calculus, for example, see the books [
1,
8]. Here we mention that the Hilfer fractional derivative unifies the definitions of both Riemann–Liouville and Caputo fractional derivatives. For some applications of Hilfer fractional derivative operator, see [
2,
9,
10,
11].
Let us now review some recent works on fractional differential equations and systems equipped with different boundary conditions. In [
12], the authors proved the existence and uniqueness of solutions for a boundary value problem involving
-Hilfer type fractional derivative and integral operators of the form:
where
and
represent the
-Hilfer type fractional derivative operators of orders
, and
with parameters
, respectively,
is the
-Riemann–Liouville fractional integral of order
and
For some recent results on
-Hilfer fractional differential equations, see [
13].
In [
14], the authors applied the standard tools of the fixed point theory to establish the existence and uniqueness results for the coupled
-Hilfer type fractional differential system (
1) equipped with nonlocal multipoint boundary conditions:
where
and
As far as the authors know, the paper [
14] is the only work in the literature dealing with coupled systems of
-Hilfer fractional derivative operator of the order in
Our goal in the present paper is to enrich this new research area on coupled
-Hilfer fractional systems by introducing and investigating the new boundary value Problem (
1) and (
2).
Concerning the importance of coupled fractional differential systems, it is well-known that such systems appear in the mathematical models of many physical phenomena related to bio-engineering [
15], fractional dynamics [
16], financial economics [
17], etc. In [
18,
19], some interesting results for
-Hilfer fractional differential coupled systems were obtained.
The structure of the remaining paper is designed as follows.
Section 2 contains basic definitions and an auxiliary lemma. Existence and uniqueness results for the given problem are presented in
Section 3, while illustrative examples for these results are discussed in
Section 4. In the last section, we indicate some new results arising as special cases of the present work.
3. Existence and Uniqueness Results
Suppose that is the Banach space consisting of all continuous real-valued functions on to , equipped with the norm . Then is also a Banach space endowed with the norm .
Using Lemma 1, an operator
can be defined as
where
and
Here one can notice that the fixed point problem
is equivalent to the nonlinear Problem (
1) and (
2).
For the sake of computational convenience, we introduce the notation:
and
3.1. Existence of a Unique Solution
In the following result, the Banach’s fixed point theorem is applied to establish the uniqueness of solutions for the System (
1) and (
2).
Theorem 1. Let satisfy the Lipschitz condition, that is, for all and , ,where are real constants. Moreover, we suppose thatwhere are defined in Equation (15). Then, the System (1) and (2) has a unique solution on .
Proof. Let us consider a closed ball
where
and
. Then we show that
. For
, we obtain
Accordingly, we obtain
which implies that
since
is an arbitrary element. On the other hand, for
and
, we obtain
Similarly, one can find that
Then, it follows from from Equations (
19) and (
20) that
which, in view of the Condition (
18), verifies that the operator
is a contraction. Hence, by Banach’s contraction mapping principle, the operator
has a unique fixed point. Therefore, the System (
1) and (
2) has a unique solution on
□
3.2. Existence Results
We rely on the Leray–Schauder alternative [
20] to establish our first existence result.
Theorem 2. Let be two continuous functions such that, for all and , ,where are real constants with . Then, the System (1) and (2) has at least one solution on provided thatwhere are defined in Equations (15). Proof. Notice that continuity of the functions
and
implies that of the operator
Next, it will be shown that the operator
is completely continuous. Consider a bounded set
of
. Then, there exist positive constants
and
such that
In consequence, for all
, we obtain
which yields
Analogously, one can obtain
Consequently, the operator
is uniformly bounded. To establish equicontinuity property of the operator
, let
with
. Then, we have
independently of
Hence,
is equicontinuous. Similarly, it can be shown that
is equicontinuous. Thus, it follows by the foregoing arguments that the operator
is completely continuous.
Lastly, it will be shown that the set
is bounded. Let
, then
for all
and that
Consequently, we obtain
which can be expressed as
where
Thus, the Leray–Schauder alternative applies and hence its conclusion implies that the operator
has at least one fixed point. Hence the System (
1) and (
2) has at least one solution on
□
The proof of the next existence result relies on Krasnosel’skiĭ’s fixed point theorem [
21].
Theorem 3. Assume that are two continuous functions which satisfy Condition (17) of Theorem 1. Moreover, it is assumed that There exist P and such that
Then, the Problem (1) and (2) has at least one solution on , provided that Proof. Let us first decompose the operator
into four operators
and
as
Observe that
and
Consider a closed ball
with
As in the proof of Theorem 2, one can obtain
and
Consequently,
Next, it will be accomplished that the
is a contraction. As argued in proving Theorem 1, for
, one can find that
and
From Equations (
23) and (
24), we obtain
which, owing to the Condition (
22), shows that the operator
is a contraction. In view of the continuity property of
and
, the operator
is continuous. Moreover,
as
and
Thus, is uniformly bounded.
In the next step, we establish that the set
is equicontinuous. For
,
and for all
, we have
independently of
Analogously, one can obtain that
Thus,
as
. So,
is equicontinuous. Hence, we deduce by the Arzelá–Ascoli theorem that the operator
is compact on
Thus, the hypotheses of Krasnosel’skiĭ fixed point theorem is verified. Therefore, the System (
1) and (
2) has at least one solution on
□