,Von!incnr Analysu. Theor). Printed m Great Bntain.
Methods
& Applic~~n~.
Vol. 8. NO. 12. pp. 1395-1108.
Oj62-546X8-1 S 00 - .OO @ 19s Pcrgamon Press Ltd.
1984.
ESTIMATES REGARDING THE DECAY OF SOLUTIONS FUNCTIONAL DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
OF
J. R. HADDOCK* Department
of Mathematical Sciences, Memphis State University, Memphis, Tennessee 38152, U.S.A
and T. KRISZTIN~ University of Szeged, Bolyai Institute, 6720 Szeged, Hungary (Received.12
August 1983; received for publication 23 January 1984)
Key words and phrases: Asymptotic equation, Razumikhin methods.
behavior,
exponential
and nonexponential
decay, comparison
1. INTRODUCTION
of this paper is to study the rapidity of convergence (to zero) of solutions of functional differential equations (FDE) with finite delay. Our main techniques involve differential inequalities and comparison theorems, and the principal intent is to provide results that can be applied in a direct manner. Investigations that deal with convergence properties of solutions of differential equations (ordinary, partial and functional) are quite often concerned with exponential decay. Likewise, the results presented here frequently yield exponential convergence. On the other hand, we are sometimes able to estimate asymptotic behavior that is not exponential (example 4.2), while in other instances convergence that is faster than exponential can be deduced (example 4.5). In Section 2, we provide the general setting and underlying assumptions. Section 3 contains a statement of the main result, with applications and comments given in Section 4. In order to facilitate the exposition of the paper, the proofs have been delayed until Section 5.
THE PURPOSE
2. PRELIMINARIES
Let r 3 0 be given and let C = C([-r, 01, R”) denote the space of continuous functions that map the interval [--I, 0] into R”. For $ E C, define the norm of # by 1)@/I= _z;+, 1q(s) 1, . .
where ( . 1 denotes any convenient norm in R”: If x: [to - r, to + A) + R” is continuous on O
(2.1)