Memory Dependent Growth in Sublinear Volterra Differential Equations

Abstract: We investigate memory dependent asymptotic growth in scalar Volterra equations with sublinear nonlinearity. To obtain precise results we utilise the powerful theory of regular variation extensively. By computing the growth rate in terms of a related ordinary differential equation we show that when the memory effect is so strong that the kernel tends to infinity, the growth rate of solutions depends explicitly on the memory of the system. Finally, we employ a fixed point argument to determine analogous results for a perturbed Volterra equation and show that, for a sufficiently large perturbation, the solution tracks the perturbation asymptotically, even when the forcing term is potentially highly non-monotone.