NON-LINEAR FUNCTIONAL-DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS AND ABSTRACT INTEGRAL-EQUATIONS

The equivalence between solutions of functional differential equations and an abstract integral equation is investigated. Using this result we derive a general approximation result in the state space C and consider as an example approximation by first order spline functions. During the last twenty years C0-semigroups of linear transformations have played an important role in the theory of linear autonomous functional differential equations (cf. for instance the discussion in [9, Section 7.7]). Applications of non-linear semigroup theory to functional differential equations are rather recent beginning with a paper by Webb [17]. Since then a considerable number of papers deal with problems in this direction. A common feature of the majority of these papers is that as a first step with the functional differential equation there is associated a non-linear operator A in a suitable Banach-space. Then appropriate conditions are imposed on the problem such that the conditions of the Crandall-Liggett-Theorem [5] hold for the operator A. This gives a non-linear semigroup. Finally the connection of this semigroup to the solutions of the original differential equation has to be investigated [cf. 8, 15, 18]. To solve this last problem in general is the most difficult part of this approach. In the present paper we consider the given functional differential equation as a perturbation of the simple equation x = 0. The solutions of this equation generate a very simple C0-semigroup. The solutions of the original functional differential equation generate solutions of an integral equation which is the variation of constants formula for the abstract Cauchy problem associated with the equation x = 0. Under very mild conditions we can prove a one-to-one correspondence between solutions of the given functional differential equation and solutions of the integral equation in the Lp-space setting. In the C-space setting the integral equation in the state space has to be replaced by a ‘pointwise’ integral equation. Using the pointwise integral equation together with a theorem which guarantees continuous dependence of fixed points on parameters we show under rather weak hypotheses that the original functional differential equation can be approximated by a sequence of ordinary differential equations. Using 1st order spline functions we finally get results which are very similar to those obtained in [1 and 11] in the L2-space setting. © 1979, Royal Society of Edinburgh. All rights reserved.