Abstract
This paper is dedicated to studying the existence results of solutions to the nonlinear coupled system of Hilfer fractional differential equations and inclusions, with multi-strip and multi-point mixed boundary conditions. Through tools such as the Leray-Schauder alternative and the nonlinear alternative of Leray-Schauder type, continuous and measurable selection theorems, along with Leray-Schauder degree theory, the main results can be obtained. The Hilfer fractional differential system has practical implications for specific physical phenomena. Examples are provided to clarify the application of our main results.
Keywords:
the Hilfer fractional derivative; the multi-strip and multi-point mixed boundary conditions; fractional differential system; fractional differential inclusions MSC:
primary 34A08; 39A12; secondary 34B16
1. Introduction
Classical calculus began with Newton’s invention of forward flow in 1665, while fractional calculus was born in 1695 when Leibniz and L’Hospital discussed the significance of derivatives, see []. It can be said that fractional and integer calculus have almost the same research history span. However, fractional calculus has only been revitalized in the last few decades, thanks to the development of various fields that promote research in fractional calculus. The new study of fractional calculus can also offer novel ideas for solving challenging problems in various fields, see [,,,,,].
Although Riemann-Liouville and Caputo fractional derivatives are considered valuable tools for modeling many real-world problems, R. Hilfer found that the traditional fractional derivatives of Riemann-Liouville and Caputo could not meet the requirements for solving new problems during the study of fractional time evolution []. Therefore, in order to separate fractional integrals, a generalized definition of fractional derivatives is proposed based on the Riemann-Liouville integral by R. Hilfer, which is where . Many authors later called this definition as the Hilfer fractional derivative. The reader is referred to references [] for the distinction between the same order but with different values of .
Initial value and boundary value problems involving the Hilfer fractional derivative have attracted a lot of research. In [], K.M. Furati discussed the existence of solutions to a Hilfer fractional differential equation for the following initial value problem. Moreover, the stability of the solution to a weighted Cauchy-type problem is also analyzed.
where is the Hilfer fractional derivative of order , and type .
In [], K. Dhawan investigated the coupled Hilfer fractional differential equations with nonlocal conditions. By applying the Leray-alternative Schauder’s and the Contraction principle, the author proved the existence and uniqueness of the solution. Furthermore, the Ulam stability of the solution was discussed for the defined problem.
where represents the Hilfer fractional derivative of order and type , , , . is the left-side Riemann-Liouville integral of order , Also, are given continuous nonlinear functions and , are real numbers, are prefixed points satisfying and , respectively.
In [], B. Ahmad studied the nonlinear generalized coupled fractional differential equations accompanied by nonlocal coupled multipoint Riemann-Stieltjes and generalized fractional integral boundary conditions using the Leray-Schauder alternative and Banach contraction mapping principle.
where and are the generalized fractional derivative operators of order , respectively, , and are the generalized fractional integral operators of order , respectively, are the Riemann-Stieltjes integrals with respect to the functions , , and
It is worth noting that J. Pradeesh considered the existence of a mild solution for the following Hilfer fractional stochastic differential system in [].
where denotes the Hilfer fractional derivative of order and type v such that and , while is the Riemann–Liouville integral operator with order , where . is the infinitesimal generator of a strongly continuous cosine family of uniformly bounded linear operators and takes values in a separable Hilbert space H with inner product and norm . The authors employed fractional calculus, multivalued analysis, sine and cosine operators, and Bohnenblust–Karlin’s fixed point theorem to investigate the existence of a mild solution for the Hilfer fractional stochastic differential system.
However, there are very few articles that have studied Hilfer fractional differential equations and inclusions simultaneously. Inspired by the aforementioned works, we are initiating a study on the existence of solutions to a coupled system of Hilfer fractional differential equations
and inclusions
subject to the coupled fractional integral and discrete mixed boundary conditions
where , denote the Hilfer fractional derivative of order , respectively and parameter , is the Riemann-Liouville fractional integral of order , , , , , , , , for ; ;
In the research of fractional time evolution, a significant challenge arises when generalizing traditional equations of motion, as it involves deciding whether to utilize the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative or the Caputo fractional derivative. R. Hilfer introduced the Hilfer fractional derivative during the study. When , the Hilfer system can be simplified to the Riemann-Liouville system studied by authors such as X. Zhao, A. Guezane-Lakoud, T. Jankowski, and others. For more details, refer to [,,]. When , the Hilfer system can be reduced to the Caputo system discussed by investigators like Y. Zi, A. Alsaedi, J. Xie, B. Ahmad, and others. References can be found in [,,,]. We learned that models of fractional diffusion equations with Hilfer fractional derivatives are used in the context of glass relaxation and aquifer problems []. Also, fractional reaction-diffusion equations and space-time fractional diffusion equations involving the Hilfer fractional derivative are studied in [,]. And more importantly, differential inclusion, which can handle uncertainty problems, has been applied to dynamical systems and stochastic processes, such as control problems and sweeping processes [,]. Therefore, our studies on the nonlinear coupled Hilfer fractional differential inclusions have great practical applications in physical phenomena.
In the coupled Hilfer fractional differential system, there are , that mutually influence each other. The nonlinear terms, and , consist of , , , , where are less than . The inclusion of , in enhances the model’s capability to address real-world problems The coupled Hilfer fractional differential inclusions have the same structure. Moreover, the nonlocal boundary conditions consist of the Riemann-Liouville fractional integral and numerous discrete points. The value of the unknown function at the right endpoint is equal to the sum of the values of the Riemann–Liouville fractional integral of the unknown function on the subinterval and the discrete values of the unknown function at .
In addition, there are now many well-established methods for studying fractional differential equations and inclusions, such as Guo-Krasnoselskii’s fixed-point theorem, the Banach contraction mapping principle, and monotone iteration techniques. We employed the Leray-Schauder alternative and the nonlinear alternative of Leray-Schauder type, continuous and measurable selection theorems, along with Leray-Schauder degree theory, to explore the existence of solutions for the Hilfer fractional differential equations and inclusions, respectively.
In fact, fractional derivatives have been greatly developed and applied, leading to the emergence of several mature definitions such as the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative, the Hadamard fractional derivative, the Caputo-Katugampola fractional derivative, the Katugampola fractional derivative, and others. In contrast, the derivative under Hilfer’s definition requires more research efforts to promote its development. Whether transferring mature research techniques to Hilfer or developing new technical methods, the work is meaningful. Differential inclusions can be regarded as a collection of differential equations and inequalities. Moreover, this paper examines the coupled system of Hilfer differential equations and inclusions, which is of great significance for practical applications.
2. Preliminaries
In this section, we present some basic definitions, lemmas, and auxiliary results for the proof that will be utilized in the next section.
Let , and denote the spaces of continuous, absolutely continuous and n times continuously differentiable functions on , respectively. We denote by , the spaces of Lebesgue integrable functions on .
Definition 1
([,]). The Riemann-Liouville fractional integral of order of a continuous function is defined by
where , denotes the integer part of real number
Definition 2
([,]). The Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative of order of a continuous function is defined by
where .
Definition 3
([]). The Caputo fractional derivative of order of a continuous function is defined by
where .
Definition 4
([]). The Hilfer fractional derivative of order α and parameter β of a function is defined by
where
Remark 1.
From Definitions 2 and 3, when , the Hilfer fractional derivative corresponds to the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative
while when , the Hilfer fractional derivative corresponds to the Caputo fractional derivative
For convenience, let , , we can know and . We have the weighted spaces of continuous functions
with the norm
and
Lemma 1
([]). For maps into
Lemma 2
([]). Let and . Then is bounded from into
Lemma 3
([]). Let and . If then is bounded from into
Lemma 4
([]). If , then
Lemma 5
([]). Let and . Then
Lemma 6
([]). Let and Then
Lemma 7
([]). For we have
Lemma 8
([]). Let If and then
for all
Lemma 9
([]). Let and If and then exists in and
Lemma 10
([]). Let and If then
Lemma 11
(Leray–Schauder alternative []). Let X be a Banach space, be a completely continuous operator. Let
Then, either the set is unbounded, or T has at least one fixed point.
Lemma 12
(Nonlinear alternative of Leray-Schauder type []). Let X be a Banach space, Ω be a closed convex subset of X, and U be an open subset of Ω with . Suppose that is an upper semicontinuous compact map. Then either (1) F has a fixed point in , or (2) there is and such that .
For each , we defined the set of selections of F by
For convenience, we denote
In the forthcoming analysis, we always need to make the following assumptions:
- (F1)
- where for and ;
- (F2)
- for ,
- (F3)
- where are defined by (12).
Subject to BVP (5) and (7), we consider a corresponding linear differential system as follows and establish the expression of the corresponding Green’s functions.
Lemma 13.
Assume that – hold. For , the fractional differential system
with boundary conditions (5) has an integral representation
Proof.
From Definition 1 and Lemma 10, using to (13), we have:
From Lemma 8, we obtain
Combining (16) and (17), we can simplify (13) to the following equivalent integral equations
where are constants.
From , we obtain , and we get
This completes the proof of the lemma. □
Moreover, according to Lemma 4, and fractional order derivative of solution (11) can be expressed as
Lemma 14.
Proof.
First we prove the necessity. Let be a solution of (5) and (7). We want to prove that are the solutions of the integral Equations (30) and (31). By the definition of Lemma 3, we have
and
Thus by (11), we have
We apply Lemma 8 to obtain
Since by Lemma 10, we have
Combining (36) and (37), we have
where are constants. According to boundary conditions (5) and calculation steps in Lemma 13, we obtain
which is the integral Equations (30) and (31).
Now we prove the sufficiency. Let satisfy (30) and (31). Since , it follows from Lemma 2 that and . We can get and exist. Applying the operator to (30) and (31), it follows from Lemma 7, Lemma 10 that
From (41) and we have
Since by Lemma 2, we have
It follows from (11), (42)–(44) that
Now by applying to (41), using Lemma 8, we have
According to and , we have for . Lemma 5 implies that
Hence the (46) and (47) reduce to
Now we show that the boundary conditions (5) also hold. From Lemma 5, (30) and (31), we have
From (25), (30) and (31), we obtain
This completes the proof. □
3. Main Results
For computational convenience, we introduce the notations:
Also, Let be a Banach space endowed with the norm
which defined by (9) and be a Banach space endowed with the norm
which defined by (9). We can have the poiduct space with the norm
3.1. The Existence Results of the Coupled Hilfer Fractional Differential System
Theorem 1.
Proof.
which yields
So we can get
Similarly, we obtain that
and
Hence, for , is uniformly bounded. Thus it follows from the above inequalities that the set is uniformly bounded.
We define the operator by
where
Also, according to (28) and (29), it is easy to see that
We will show that the operator is completely continuous.
(a) The operator is continuous.
By the continuity of the functions and , the operator T is continuous.
(b) The operator is uniformly bounded. Let be any bounded subset of . There exist positive constants such that
For any , we get
which yields
(c) The operator is equicontinous.
For any and such that , we have
and
Therefore the set is equicontinous for all . Similarly, we can get the set is equicontinous for all . As a consequence, the set is equicontinous for all . By applying the Arzelá–Ascoli theorem, the set is relative compact which implies that the operator T is completely continuous.
Lastly, we shall show that the set is bounded. Let any then For any we have
Then, we get
which imply that
Thus, we obtain
where which shows that the set is bounded. Therefore, by applying Lemma 11, the operator T has at least one fixed point. Therefore, we deduce that problem (5) and (7) has at least one solution on J.
The proof is completed. □
3.2. The Existence Results of the Coupled Hilfer Fractional Differential Inclusions
X is a real (or complex) separable Banach space with a norm , defined by , is the family of all nonempty subsets of X. For a normed space , let Y be a subset of X. We denote
- (i)
- (X) = {Y ⊆ X: };
- (ii)
- (X) = {: Y closed};
- (iii)
- (X) = {: Y bounded};
- (iv)
- (X) = {: Y compact};
- (v)
- (X) = {: Y convex};
- (vi)
- (X) = {: Y compact, convex};
: are given multivalued maps. When are convex valued, to complete our result we need the following assumtions:
- (H1)
- are -Carathéodory multivalued maps;
- (H2)
- There exist and continuous, nondecreasing such that
Lemma 15.
[] Let X be a Banach space. Let be an -Carathéodory multivalued map and T be a linear continuous mapping from to Then the operator
is a closed graph operator in .
Theorem 2.
Proof.
which yields
Thus
In a similar manner, we have
and
Hence we have
Analogously, we can obtain
For each , define the sets of selections of by
and
Define the multivalued operators and by
and
where
Consider the continuous operator defined by
Clearly, the fixed points of N are solutions of the system (6) and (7).
Step 1. is convex valued.
Suppose Then there exist , such that for any we have
Let . Then, for any , we have
and
Since F and G are convex valued, we infer that and are convex. Obviously, , . Therefore,
Step 2. N maps bounded sets into bounded sets in .
Let , be a bounded subset of , and Then there exist and such that for any ,
We have
which yields
Step 3. N maps bounded sets into equicontinuous sets in .
Let be a bounded set of as in step 2. Let and
Therefore, the operator is equicontinuous. By the Arzelá-Ascoli theorem, we infer that the operator is completely continuous.
Step 4. N has a closed graph.
Let and , we need to proof . implies that there exist and such that for all ,
Let us consider the continuous linear operators given by
From Lemma 15, we know that is a closed graph operator. Moreover, we get for all n. Since , , it follows the existence of and such that
that is,
Step 5. A priori bounds on solutions.
Let for some Then there exist and such that for all ,
and
With the same arguments as in Step 2 of our proof, for each we obtain
and
Hence we have
Now we set . Clearly, U is an open subset of and As a consequence of Steps 1–4, together with the Arzelá-Ascoli theorem, we can conclude that is upper semicontinuous and completely continuous. From the choice of U, there is no such that for some . Therefore, by Lemma 12, we deduce that N has a fixed point which is a solution of the coupled system (6) and (7).
This completes the proof. □
Example 1.
For , consider the following fractional differential system:
with the coupled integral and discrete mixed boundary conditions:
where , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , the nonlinear functions and are defined by
By calculation we get and
From (127), we can get
Let and Theorem 3.1 can be applied to problem (3.73) and (3.74). We find and . Therefore, the conclusion of Theorem 3.1 implies that problem (3.73) and (3.74) have at least one solution on J.
Example 2.
For , consider the following fractional differential inclusions:
with the coupled integral and discrete mixed boundary conditions:
where , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and : are multivalued maps given by
From (131), we know that are -Carathéodory and have convex values satisfying
with
4. Conclusions
In this paper, we study the nonlinear coupled system of Hilfer fractional differential equations and inclusions with multi-strip and multi-point mixed boundary conditions. The existence results can be derived using tools such as the Leray-Schauder alternative, the Arzelá-Ascoli theorem, etc. It is very significant to study Hilfer fractional differential equations and inclusions for biological models and physical phenomena. However, for the Hilfer fractional differential inclusion, we assume a convex function. After that, we will continue studying the conclusions in the non-convex case.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, R.M., Y.M. and H.P.; methodology, R.M., Y.M. and H.P.; validation, R.M., Y.M. and H.P.; writing—original draft preparation, R.M.; writing—review and editing, R.M. and H.P.; supervision, Y.M. and H.P. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This research received no external funding.
Data Availability Statement
Data are contained within the article.
Conflicts of Interest
All authors declare no conflicts of interest in this paper.
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