1.
Introduction
Lately, fractional calculus has played a very significant role in various scientific fields; see for instance [1,2] and the references cited therein. As a result of this, fractional differential equations have caught the attention of many investigators working in different desciplines [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11]. However, most of researchers works have been conducted by using fractional derivatives that mainly rely on Riemann-Liouville, Hadamard, Katugampola, Grunwald Letnikov and Caputo approaches.
Fractional derivatives of a function with respect to another function have been considered in the classical monographs [1,12] as a generalization of Riemann-Liouville derivative. This fractional derivative is different from the other classical fractional derivative as the kernel appears in terms of another function ψ. Thus, this type of derivative is referred to as ψ-fractional derivative. Recently, this derivative has been reconsidered by Almeida in [14] where the Caputo-type regularization of the existing definition and some interesting properties are provided. Several properties of this operator could be found in [1,12,13,15,16]. For some particular cases of ψ, one can realize that ψ-fractional derivative can be reduced to the Caputo fractional derivative [1], the Caputo-Hadamard fractional derivative [17] and the Caputo-Erdélyi-Kober fractional derivative [18].
On the other hand, the investigation of qualitative properties of solutions for different fractional differential (and integral) equations is the key theme of applied mathematics research. Numerous interesting results concerning the existence, uniqueness, multiplicity, and stability of solutions or positive solutions by applying some fixed point techniques are obtained. However, most of the proposed problems have been handled concerning the classical fractional derivatives of the Riemann-Liouville and Caputo [19,20,21,22,23,24,25,26,27,28,29].
In parallel with the intensive investigation of fractional derivative, a normal generalization of the Langevin differential equation appears to be replacing the classical derivative by a fractional derivative to produce fractional Langevin equation (FLE). FLE was first introduced in [30] and then different types of FLE were the object of many scholars [31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40]. In particular, the authors studied a nonlinear FLE involving two fractional orders on different intervals with three-point boundary conditions in [40], whereas FLE involving a Hadamard derivative type was considered in [33,34,35].
Alternatively, the stability problem of differential equations was discussed by Ulam in [41]. Thereafter, Hyers in [42] developed the concept of Ulam stability in the case of Banach spaces. Rassias provided a fabulous generalization of the Ulam-Hyers stability of mappings by taking into account variables. His approach was refered to as Ulam-Hyers-Rassias stability [43]. Recently, the Ulam stability problem of implicit differential equations was extended into fractional implicit differential equations by some authors [44,45,46,47]. A series of papers was devoted to the investigation of existence, uniqueness and U-H stability of solutions of the FLE within different kinds of fractional derivatives.
Motivated by the recent developments on ψ-fractional calculus, in the present work, we investigate the existence, uniqueness and stability in the sense Ulam–Hyers–Rassias of solutions for the following FLE within ψ-Caputo fractional derivatives of different orders involving nonlocal boundary conditions
where (Jγ,ψa+,ξ) and (cDθ,ψa+,t) are ψ-fractional integral of order γ, ψ-Caputo fractional derivative of order θ∈{α,β,γ} respectively, 0≤a<η<ξ<T<∞, 1<α≤2, 0<γ<β≤1,λ is a real number and F:[a,T]×R×R→ R+ is a continuous function. We observe that problem (1.1) is designated within a general platform in the sense that general fractional derivative is considered with respect to different fractional orders, the forcing function depends on the general fractional derivative and boundary conditions involve integral fractional operators. Furthermore, the stability analysis in the sense of Ulam is investigated by the help of new versions of ψ-fractional Gronwall inequality and ψ-fractional integration by parts. It is worth mentioning here that the proposed results in this paper which rely on ψ-fractional integrals and derivatives can generalize the existing results in the literature [31,40] and obtain them as particular cases.
The major contributions of the work are as follows: Some lemmas and definitions on ψ-fractional calculus theory are recalled in Section 2. In Section 3, we prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions for problem (1.1) via applying fixed point theorems. Section 4 devotes to discuss different types of stability results for the problem (1.1) by the help of generalized ψ-Gronwall's inequality [49] and ψ-fractional integration by parts. The proposed results are examined via Maple using several numerical examples for different values of function ψ, presented in several tables in Section 5, to check the applicability of the theoretical findings. We end the paper by a conclusion in Section 6.
2.
Preliminaries and essential lemmas
The standard Riemann-Liouville fractional integral of order α, ℜ(α)>0, has the form
The left-sided factional integrals and fractional derivatives of a function u with respect to another function ψ in the sense of Riemann-Liouville are defined as follows [13,14]
and
respectively, where n=[α]+1.
Analogous formulas can be offered for the right fractional (integral and derivative) as follows:
and
The left (right) ψ-Caputo fractional derivatives of u of order α are given by
and
respectively. In particular, when α∈(0,1), we have
and
where u,ψ∈Cn[a,b] two functions such that ψ is increasing and ψ′(t)≠0, for all t∈[a,b].
Remark 2.1. We propose the remarkable paper [16] in which some generalizations using ψ-fractional integrals and derivatives are described. In particular, we have
where Jαa+,t,HJαa+,t,ρJαa+,t are classical Riemann-Liouville, Hadamard, and Katugampola fractional operators.
Lemma 2.2. [14] Given u∈C([a,b]) and v∈Cn([a,b]), we have that for all α>0
where
Lemma 2.3. [1] Let α>0 and u, ψ∈C([a,b]). Then
For all n−1<α<n,
where ||⋅||C is the Chebyshev norm defined on C([a,b]).
The following results are well known and one can see [1,14] for further details.
Lemma 2.4. [1] Let α,β>0, consider the functions
and
Note that
The subsequent properties are valid: If α,β>0, then
Lemma 2.5. [1] Given a function u∈Cn[a,b] and α>0, we have
In particular, given α∈(0,1), we have
Lemma 2.6. Given a function u∈Cn[a,b] and 1>α>0, we have
Proof. Using Lemmas 2.3 and 2.4, we have
Now we state here two important fixed point theorems, namely Banach and Krasnoselskii's fixed point theorems. These will help us to develop sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of solutions.
Theorem 2.7. [48] Let Br be the closed ball of radius r>0, centred at zero, in a Banach space X with Υ:Br→X a contraction and Υ(∂ Br)⊆Br. Then, Υ has a unique fixed point in Br.
Theorem 2.8. [48] Let M be a closed, convex, non-empty subset of a Banach space X×X. Suppose that E and F map M into X and that
(i) Eu+Fv∈M for all u,v∈M;
(ii) E is compact and continuous;
(iii) F is a contraction mapping.
Then the operator equation Ew+Fw=w has at least one solution on M.
Definition 2.9. The problem (1.1) is U-H stable if there exists a real number cf>0 such that for each ϵ>0 and for each solution ˜u∈C([a,T]) of the inequality
there exists a solution u∈C[a,T] of the problem (1.1) with
Definition 2.10. The problem (1.1) is generalized U-H stable if there exists Φ(t)∈C(R+,R+), Φ(0)=0 such that for each ϵ>0 and for each solution ˜u∈C[a,T] of inequality (2.2), there exists a solution u∈C[a,T] of problem (1.1) with
where Φ(ϵ) is only dependent on ϵ.
Definition 2.11. The problem (1.1) is U-H-R stable if there exists a real number cf>0 such that for each ϵ>0 and for each solution ˜u∈C[a,T] of the inequality
there exists a solution u∈C[a,T] of the problem (1.1) with
Definition 2.12. The problem (1.1) is generalized U-H-R stable with respect to Φ if there exists cf>0 such that for each solution ˜u∈C[a,T] of the inequality
there exists a solution u∈C[a,T] of the problem (1.1) with
We adopt the following conventions:
We remark that, the following generalized ψ-Gronwall Lemma is an important tool in proving the main results of this paper.
Lemma 2.13. [49] Let u,v be two integrable functions on [a,b]. Let ψ∈C1[a,b] be an increasing function such that ψ′(t)≠0, ∀t∈[a,b]. Assume that
(i) u and v are nonnegative;
(ii) The functions (gi)i=1⋯n are bounded and monotonic increasing functions on [a,b];
(iii) The constants αi>0 (i=1,2,…,n). If
then
Remark 2.14. [49] For n=2 in the hypotheses of Lemma 2.13. Let v(t) be a nondecreasing function for a≤t<T. Then we have
where Eαi(i=1,2) is the Mittag-Leffler function defined below.
Definition 2.15. [50] The Mittag-Leffler function is given by the series
where ℜ(α)>0 and Γ(z) is a Gamma function. In particular, if α=1/2 in (2.3) we have
where erf(z) is the error function.
In the remaining portion of the paper, we make use of the next suppositions:
(A1) For each t∈[a,T], there exist a constant Li>0 (i=1,2) such that
(A2) There exists an increasing function χ(t)∈(C[a,T],R+), for any t∈[a,T],
(A3) There exist a constant L>0 such that
(A4) There exists an function Φ(t)∈(C[a,T],R+) and there exists lα,ψ>0 such that for any t∈[a,T],
Denoting
and
Further, we assume
where σij are constants.
3.
Existence and uniqueness of solution
In order to study the nonlinear FLE (1.1), we first consider the linear associated FLE and conclude the form of the solution.
3.1. Linear boundary problem
The following lemma regards a linear variant of problem
where F∈C([a,T],R).
Lemma 3.1. The unique solution of the ψ-Caputo linear problem (3.1) is given by the integral equation
where
Proof. Applying (Jα,ψa+,t) on both sides of (3.1-a), we have
for c1,c2∈R.
Now applying (Jβ,ψa+,t) to both sides of (3.4), we get
where c3∈R.
Using the boundary conditions in (3.1-b), we obtain c3:=c3(F)=0 and
Further, we get a system of linear equations with respect to c1, c2 as follows
where
and
We note
Because the determinant of coefficients for Δ≠0. Thus, we have
Substituting these values of c1 and c2 in (3.5), we finally obtain (3.2) as
That is, the integral equation (3.6) can be written as (3.2) and
Differentiating the above relations one time we obtain (3.1-a), also it is easy to get that the condition (3.1-b) is satisfied. The proof is complete.
For convenience, we define the following functions
and
3.2. Nonlinear problem
The following result is an immediate consequence of Lemma 3.1.
Lemma 3.2. Let λ∈R. Then problem (1.1) is equivalent to the integral equation
where
and dij are defined in (3.7) and (3.8).
From the expression of (1.1-a) and (3.9), we can see that if all the conditions in Lemmas 3.1 and 3.2 are satisfied, the solution is a C[a,T] solution of the ψ-Caputo fractional boundary value problem (1.1).
In order to lighten the statement of our result, we adopt the following notation.
with
and
We are now in a position to establish the existence and uniqueness results. Fixed point theorems are the main tool to prove this.
Let C=C([a,T],R) be a Banach space of all continuous functions defined on [a,T] endowed with the usual supremum norm. Define the space
equipped with the norm
Then, we may conclude that (E,‖.‖E) is a Banach space.
To introduce a fixed point problem associated with (3.9) we consider an integral operator Ψ:E→E defined by
Theorem 3.3. Assume that F:[a,T]×R×R⟶R+ is a continuous function that satisfies (A1). If we suppose that
holds. Then the problem (1.1) has a unique solution on E.
Proof. The proof will be given in two steps.
Step 1. The operator Ψ maps bounded sets into bounded sets in E.
For our purpose, consider a function u∈E. It is clear that Ψu∈E. Also by (2.1), (3.10) and (3.19), we have
Indeed, it is sufficient to prove that for any r>0, for each u∈Br={u∈E:‖u‖E≤r}, we have ‖Ψu‖E≤r.
Denoting
By (A1) we have for each t∈[a,T]
Firstly, we estimate |ϕu(F)| as follows
Then
Taking the maximum over [a,T], we get
where ϕu, dij(t) and ρij defined by (3.10), (3.7), (3.8) and (3.14–3.17) respectively. Using (3.19) and (3.22), we obtain
where ςij defined by (3.11) and (3.12). On the other hand
Taking the maximum over [a,T], we get
Using (3.21) and (3.24), we obtain
Consequently, by (3.23) and (3.25), we have
where ς is defined by (3.20) and choose
The continuity of the functional Fu would imply the continuity of (Ψu) and (cDδ,ψa+,t)(Ψu) Hence, Ψ maps bounded sets into bounded sets in E.
Step 2.Now we show that Ψ is a contraction. By (A1) and (3.19), for u,v∈E and t∈[a,T], we have
where
and
for all t∈[a,T], which implies
Hence, we get
Consequently,
A similar argument shows that
where
Combining (3.27) and (3.28), we obtain
Consequently, by (3.26) and (3.29), we have
and choose ς=max{ς11,ς12,ς21,ς22}<1. Hence, the operator Ψ is a contraction, therefore Ψ maps bounded sets into bounded sets in E. Thus, the conclusion of the theorem follows by the contraction mapping principle.
For simplicity of presentation, we let
We consider the space defined by (3.18) equipped with the norm
It is easy to know that (E,‖.‖E) is a Banach space with norm (3.30). On this space, by virtue of Lemma 3.2, we may define the operator Ψ:E⟶E by
where Ψ1 and Ψ2 are the two operators defined on Br by
and
where dij(t) are defined by (3.7) and (3.8).
Applying (cDγ,ψa+,t) on both sides of (3.31) and (3.32), we have
and
Thus, Ψ is well-defined because Ψ1 and Ψ2 are well-defined. The continuity of the functional Fu confirms the continuity of (Ψu)(t) and (cDγ,ψa+,t)[Ψu](t), for each t∈[a,T]. Hence the operator Ψ maps E into itself.
In what follows, we utilize fixed point techniques to demonstrate the key results of this paper. In light of Lemma 3.2, we rewrite problem (3.9) as
Notice that problem (3.9) has solutions if the operator Ψ in (3.34) has fixed points. Conversely, the fixed points of Ψ are solutions of (1.1). Consider the operator Ψ:E⟶E. For u,v∈Br, we find that
Theorem 3.4. Assume that F:[a,T]×R×R⟶R+ is a continuous function and the assumption (A3) holds. If
then, problem (1.1) has at least one fixed point on [a,T].
Proof. The proof will be completed in four steps:
Step 1. Firstly, we prove that, for any u,v∈Br, Ψ1u+Ψ2v∈Br, it follows that
we obtain
Then, we have
which yields that Ψ1 is bounded. On the opposite side
which implies
Then, from (3.36) and (3.37), it follows that
By (A3) and (3.38), we have that
Then
which concludes that Ψ1u+Ψ2v∈Br for all u,v∈Br.
Step 2. Next, for u,v∈Br, Ψ2 is a contraction. From (3.32) and (3.33), we have
where
From (3.39), we can write
On the other hand
which yields
Thus, using (3.40) and (3.41), it follows that
and choose 0<|λ|(Λ21+Λ22)<1. Hence, the operator Ψ2 is a contraction.
Step 3. The continuity of Ψ1 follows from that of Fu. Let {un} be a sequence such that un⟶u in E. Then for each t∈[a,T]
By last equality with Eq (3.31), we can write
It follows that
By (3.42), we have
Consequently, by (3.43), we have
Since Fu is a continuous function, then by Lebesgue's dominated convergence theorem it follows that
Furthermore, Ψ1 is uniformly bounded on Br as ‖(Ψ1u)‖E≤(Λ11+Λ12)×‖Fu‖∞, due to (3.36).
Step 4. Finally, we establish the compactness of Ψ1. Let u,v∈Br, for t1,t2∈[a,T],t1<t2, we have
On the other hand
Using (3.44) and (3.45), we get
where
and
Consequently, we have
Thus, Ψ1 is relatively compact on Br. Hence, by the Arzela-Ascoli Theorem, Ψ1 is completely continuous on Br. Therefore, according to Theorem 2.8, the Problem (1.1) has at least one solution on Br. This completes the proof.
4.
Stability of solutions
Hereafter, we discuss the Ulam–Hyers and Ulam–Hyers–Rassias stability of solutions of the FLE (1.1). In the proofs of Theorems 4.4 and 4.9, we use integration by parts in the settings of ψ-fractional operators. Denoting
Remark 4.1. For every ϵ>0, a function ˜u∈C is a solution of of the inequality
where Φ(t)≥0 if and only if there exists a function g∈C, (which depends on ˜u) such that
(i)|g(t)|≤ϵΦ(t), ∀t∈[a,T];
(ii)(cDα,ψa+,t)(cDβ,ψa+,t+λ)[˜u]=F(t,˜u(t),cDγ,ψa+,t[˜u])+g(t).
Lemma 4.2. If ˜u∈C is a solution of the inequality (4.2) then ˜u is a solution of the following integral inequality
where
where c1(ϵΦ)−c3(ϵΦ) are real constants with F˜u=Φ and CΦ is independent of ˜u(t) and F˜u.
Proof. Let ˜u∈C be a solution of the inequality (4.2). Then by Remark 4.1-(ii), we have that
where
with
In view of (A1) and (4.3), we obtain
As an outcome of Lemma 4.2, we have the following result:
Corollary 4.3. Assume that F˜u is a continuous function that satisfies (A1). If ˜u∈C is a solution of the inequality
then ˜u is a solution of the following integral inequality
with
where
where ς13 is given by (3.12).
Proof. By Remark 4.1-(ii), (4.4), and by using (3.10) with the conditions (4.7), we have
The solution of the problem (4.4) is given by
which implies that
where
with
which is the desired inequality (4.6).
This corollary is obtained from Lemma 4.2 by setting Φ(t)=1, for all t∈[a,T], with (4.7).
Theorem 4.4. Assume that F˜u is a continuous function that satisfies (A1) and (A4). The Eq (1.1-a) is H-U-R stable with respect to Φ if there exists a real number lα,ψ>0 such that for each ϵ>0 and for each solution ˜u∈C3([a,T],R) of the inequality (4.2), there exists a solution u∗∈C3([a,T],R) of (1.1-a) with
Proof. Using (4.2) and (1.1), we obtain
and
where
By using (4.9) and (4.10), we have the following inequalities
By setting
and
It follows from (4.9) and (4.10), that
Applying Lemma 4.2 and from estimation (4.11), it follows
where
Using Lemma 2.4 and (A1), we have
and
where
Set
where
with
This means that
Using Lemma 2.13, the above inequality implies the estimation for p(t) such as
Therefore, with (A4), the inequality (4.12) can be rewritten as
By Remark 2.14, one can obtain
Thus, we complete the proof.
Theorem 4.5. Assume that the assumptions (A1) and (A4). If a continuously differentiable function ˜u:[a,T]⟶R satisfies (4.2), where Φ:[a,T]⟶R+ is a continuous function with (A3), then there exists a unique continuous function u∗:[a,T]⟶R of problem (1.1) such that
with
Proof. Assume that ˜u∈C3([a,T],R) is a solution of the (4.2). In view of proof of Theorem 4.4, we get
with the conditions (4.14), we have
Set q(t)=CΦ(t). Using Theorem 4.4 and (A4), we conclude that, the estimation for p(t)=|u(t)−˜u(t)| such as (4.12).\ So the inequality (4.12) can be rewritten as
By Remark 2.14, one can obtain
This proves that the problem (1.1) is, Ulam–Hyers–Rassias stable.
Theorem 4.6. Assume that the assumptions (A2), (A4) and (4.2) hold. Then Eq (1.1-a) is H-U-R stable.
Proof. By (A2) and (4.11), we have
and
where
Using Lemma 4.2, we have
where
with
From the above, it follows
By Remark 2.14, one can obtain
Remark 4.7. If Φ(t) is a constant function in the inequalities (4.2), then we say that (1.1-a) is Ulam–Hyers stable.
Corollary 4.8. Assume that the assumptions (A2), (A4) and (4.2) hold. Then Eq (1.1-a) with (4.13) is Ulam–Hyers–Rassias stable.
Proof. Using Theorem 4.6, we have
where
We conclude that
By Remark 2.14, one can obtain
Theorem 4.9. Assume that the assumptions (A1) and (4.2) with (4.14) hold. Then problem (1.1) is Ulam–Hyers stable and consequently generalized Ulam–Hyers stable.
Proof. Let u∗ be a unique solution of the fractional Langevin type problem (1.1), that is, u∗(t)=(Ψu∗)(t). Assume that ˜u∈C([a,T],R) is a solution of the (4.2). By using the estimation
where
Taking the maximum over [a,T], we get
Using Lemma 2.3 and (4.15), we obtain
where
We conclude that
Thus problem (1.1) is Ulam–Hyers stable. Further, using Theorem 4.5 implies that solution of (1.1) is generalized Ulam–Hyers stable. This completes the proof.
Corollary 4.10. Let the conditions of Theorem 4.9 hold. Then Problem (1.1) is generalized Ulam–Hyers–Rassias stable.
Proof. Set ϵ=1 in the proof of Theorem 4.9, we get
Remark 4.11. (ⅰ) Considering (1.1) and inequality (4.2), then under the assumptions of Theorem 4.5, one can follow the same procedure to confirm that (1.1) is Ulam–Hyers stable.
(ⅱ) Other stability results for the Eq (1.1) can be discussed in a similar manner.
5.
Applications
In this section, we provide some test problems to illustrate the applicability of the established results.
Example 5.1. Without loss of generality, we only consider the following ψ
-Caputo Langevin equations
By taking
we have
For ψ(t)=t, we shall show that condition (3.3) holds with
A simple computation shows that
(ⅰ) Thus, the hypotheses (A1) and (3.20) are satisfied with
and
where ρ11, ρ12, ρ21, ρ22, ς11, ς12 and ς21 are given by (3.14)–(3.17) and (3.11)–(3.13) respectively.
Thus condition (3.20), with
is
and
Hence, by Theorem 3.3, the Problem (1.1) with (5.1) and (5.2) has a unique solution.
(ⅱ) On the other hand, using (3.35), the condition
is satisfied and
So, by Theorem 3.4, the Problem (1.1) with (5.1) and (5.2) has at least one fixed point on [0,1].
(ⅲ) It is easy to check that the condition (4.8) is satisfied. Indeed,
Then by Corollary 4.3, we have, if ˜u∈C is a solution of the inequality (4.5), then ˜u is a solution of the integral inequality (4.6).
(ⅳ) Let Φ(t)=ψ(t)−ψ(a) in Remark 2.14 satisfy (A4).
From (4.2) and the condition (A4), we get
and
With (5.2), we obtain
By Lemma 2.13 and Remark 2.14, there exists lα,ψ≡0.216>0 such that for each ε>0, we have
Therefore, by Theorem 4.5, the Problem (1.1) with (5.1) and (5.2) is generalized Ulam–Hyers–Rassias-Mittag-Leffler stable.
(ⅴ) The condition (4.16) is satisfied with
By Theorem 4.9, this implies that Problem (1.1) with (5.1) and (5.2) has Ulam–Hyers–Rassias stability.
Further in the below tables (as Tables 1 and 2), we list the consequences of proposed theorems for different values of functions ψ.
and
Example 5.2. Let
and
Then, we have
In the below tables (as Tables 3 and 4), we list the consequences of proposed theorems for different values of functions ψ.
If Φ(t)=ψ(t)−ψ(a) then
Example 5.3. (ⅰ) If we set Φ(t)=exp(θ(ψ(t)−ψ(a))) for every θ≠0, then by the changing of variables θ(ψ(t)−ψ(a))=u, we obtain
where γ(α,t) is the incomplete Gamma function defined by
Thus
Then by the above inequality, we obtain
Hence function Φ(t) satisfies the condition (A4) with
(ⅱ) If we set Φ(t)=Eα(θ(ψ(t)−ψ(a))α) for every θ≠0, then
Thus function Φ(t) satisfies condition (A4) with
(ⅲ) The function Φ(t) is positive and there exists a constant lα,ψ such that the condition (A4) is satisfied.
Indeed, for each t≤[a,T], we get
Where as τ∈[a,t], α≥1 and ψ′(τ)≥0
then
Thus function Φ(t) satisfies the condition (A4) with
Example 5.4. Let h∈C2(R2) be bounded and let g∈L1[0,T]. Then the functions
satisfies (5.4). In view of condition (A2), we consider the different values of function F (as Table 5),
where
6.
Conclusions
The Langevin equation has been introduced to characterize dynamical processes in a fractal medium in which the fractal and memory features with a dissipative memory kernel are incorporated. Therefore, the consideration of Langevin equation in frame of fractional derivatives settings would be providing better interpretation for real phenomena. Consequently, scholars have considered different versions of Langevin equation and thus many interesting papers have been reported in this regard. However, one can notice that most of existing results have been carried out with respect to the classical fractional derivatives.
In this paper, we have tried to promote the current results and considered the FLE in a general platform. The boundary value problem of nonlinear FLE involving ψ- fractional operators of different orders was investigated. One of the major differences in the problem considered in this work and relevant work already published in literature, is that, we are dealing with general fractional operator. Secondly, the forcing function depends on fractional derivative of unknown function. We employ the newly accommodated ψ- fractional calculus to prove the following for the considered problem:
(ⅰ) The existence and uniqueness of solutions: Techniques of fixed point theorems are used to prove the results. Prior to the main theorems, the forms of solutions are derived for both linear and nonlinear problems.
(ⅱ) Stability in sense of Ulam: We adopt the required definitions of Ulam–Hyers stability with respect to ψ- fractional derivative. The Ulam–Hyers–Rassias and generalized U-H-R stability of the solution are discussed. Gronwall inequality and integration by parts in frame of ψ- fractional derivative are also employed to complete the proofs.
(ⅲ) Applications: Particular examples are addressed at the end of the paper to show the consistency of the theoretical results.
We claim that the results of this paper are new and generalize some earlier results. Moreover, by fixing the parameters involved in the given problem, we can obtain some new results as special cases of the ones presented in this paper. For example, letting ψ=t,μ=0,a=0 and T=1 in the results of Section 3, we get the ones derived in [40]. Besides, the existence results for the initial value problem of nonlinear classical Langevin equation of the form:
can be addressed by fixing a α=2 and β=1 in the results of this paper.
For further investigation, one can propose to study the properties of the solution of the considered problem via some numerical computations and simulations. We leave this as promising future work. Results obtained in the present paper can be considered as a contribution to the developing field of fractional calculus via generalized fractional derivative operators.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgement
J. Alzabut would like to thank Prince Sultan University for funding and supporting this work.