1. Introduction
In recent decades, fixed point theory has been extended to numerous abstract spaces, and it has been successfully applied to the study of a wide range of scientific problems, bridging the gap between theoretical and practical techniques and even covering extremely complex computing problems. The study and calculation of solutions to differential equations, integral equations, dynamical systems, models in economics and related subjects, game theory, physics, engineering, computer science, and neural networks are all examples of fixed point theory applications. They are also important tools for researching nonlinear systems because they give a framework for elevating some basic aspects of linear model solutions in order to deduce the response of nonlinear systems whose solutions are located as the fixed points of a specific operator. The most famous and celebrated fixed point theorem, known as the Banach contraction principle [
1], was proved in 1922 by Polish mathematician Banach. The fundamental Banach contraction principle, which has been modified and improved in numerous directions, is the core conclusion of metric fixed point theory (see [
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9]).
On the other hand, Matthews [
10] introduced the notion of partial metric space in 1994, which is based on the observation that in a metric type definition, the distance of a point from itself may not be essentially zero. In doing so, he was essentially motivated by the study of denotational semantics of data-flow networks. He also proved a Banach-type fixed point theorem on a complete partial metric space, which is an extended version of the Banach contraction principle. In the continuation of this generalization, Asadi et al. [
11] gave an idea of
M-metric space as a modified version of partial metric space and proved a fixed point theorem for the same in 2014. Later, Mlaiki et al. [
12] generalized
M-metric space as well as
b-metric space by introducing
-metric space. Özgür et al. [
13] generalized the notion of
M-metric space by introducing the notion of
-metric space in 2018. In the recent past (in 2019), Asim et al. [
2] extended the class of
-metric space by introducing the class of rectangular
-metric space (denoted by
-metric space) and utilized the same to prove a fixed point theorem.
Turinici [
14] first proposed the theory of order-theoretic fixed point outcomes in 1986. Ran and Reurings [
15] produced a new, more natural formulation of the Banach contraction principle shortly after and used his result to explain the existence and uniqueness of a system of linear equation solutions. Nieto and Rodriguez-Lopez [
16,
17] closely followed this paper. On such topics, there is currently a great deal of research effort underway, and one might look to these works (see [
18,
19,
20,
21,
22,
23,
24,
25,
26,
27,
28,
29,
30,
31,
32,
33]) and the papers cited therein.
Inspired by the foregoing observations, we prove some existence and uniqueness common fixed point results in -metric space endowed with an ordered relation. We improve upon the relatively weaker notions of completeness and continuity. The completeness of X is merely required on any subspace of X containing .
2. Preliminaries
The following concepts, definitions, and auxiliary results are required in our upcoming discussions before we can present our results.
In 2012, Asadi et al. [
11] introduced the following definition of
M-metric space.
Definition 1 ([
11])
. Let X be a non-empty set. A mapping is called M-metric if m satisfies the following (for all ):- (1)
if and only if
- (2)
,
- (3)
,
- (4)
.
Then, the pairis said to be an M-metric space, where.
After two years, Mlaiki et al. [
12] introduced the following definition of
-metric space.
Definition 2 ([
12])
. Let X be a non-empty set. A mapping is called -metric with coefficient , if satisfies the following (for all ):- (1)
if and only if
- (2)
- (3)
- (4)
Then, the pair is said to be an -metric space, where .
Özgür et al. [
13] introduced the following definition of rectangular
M-metric space.
Definition 3 ([
13])
. Let X be a non-empty set. A mapping is said to be a rectangular M-metric if satisfies the following (for all and all distinct ,):- (1)
if and only if
- (2)
- (3)
,
- (4)
.
Then, the pair is said to be a rectangular M-metric space, where .
In 2019, Asim et al. [
2] proposed the concept of
-metric space as a generalization of both rectangular
M-metric space as well as
-metric space.
Definition 4 ([
2])
. Let X be a non-empty set. A mapping is said to be -metric with coefficient if satisfies the following (for all and all distinct ):if and only if,
,
,
.
Then, the pair is said to be an -metric space, where .
Remark 1. If then is said to be a rectangular b-metric space.
Now, we adopt an example of an -metric space.
Example 1. Define on with any positive integer , by (for all ): Then, is an -metric space with coefficient . By routine calculation, one can easily check that is not rectangular M-metric space.
Definition 5. Let be an -metric space. A sequence is considered to be convergent to if and only if Definition 6. Let be an -metric space. A sequence in is considered to be Cauchy if and only ifexist and are finite. Definition 7. An -metric space is considered to be complete if and only if every Cauchy in is convergent to a point in .
Let denote a pair of self-mappings defined on an such that for . Then, the point a is called the coincidence point, is called the point of coincidence, and if , then a is said to be a common fixed point of . A binary operation ‘’ on X is said to be partial ordered if it is reflexive, antisymmetric, and transitive. We say ‘’ is related to ‘’ if (or ). An ordered set is defined as plus ‘’ and is typically expressed by . The triplet is said to be a partial ordered metric space or ordered metric space if is an ordered set and is a metric space. Throughout the paper, the symbols , and represent increasing, decreasing, and monotonic sequences, respectively.
The following definition is a generalized form of the definition defined in [
27].
Definition 8. If is an -metric space and is an ordered set, the triple is termed an ordered -metric space. Moreover, if either or , two elements are said to be comparable. We abbreviate this as for clarity.
Definition 9 ([
22])
. Let be self-mappings on an ordered set - (1)
f considered to be g-increasing if for all
- (2)
f considered to be g-decreasing if for all
- (3)
If f is either g-increasing or g-decreasing, f considered to be g-monotone.
The following definitions (Definitions 10 and 11) improve the definitions presented in [
21].
Definition 10 ([
21])
. Let be self-mappings on and . Then, f is called (g,)- continuous (or (g,)-continuous or (g,O
)-continuous) at if , for every sequence with (or or ). Moreover, f is called (g,O
)-continuous (or (g,)-continuous or (g,)-continuous) if for every sequence with (or or ) at every point of Remark 2. In an ordered -metric space, continuity ⇒ (g,O)-continuity ⇒ (g,)-continuity as well as (g,)-continuity.
Observe that on setting , the Definition 10 reduces to the O-continuous (resp. -continuous, -continuous).
Definition 11. The ordered -metric space stands for -complete (or -complete or O-complete) if every increasing (or decreasing or monotone) Cauchy sequence in X converges to a point of .
Remark 3. From the above definition, it is clear that completeness implies O-completeness, which implies -completeness (together with -completeness).
The following definitions are a modified version of [
21,
34,
35], respectively.
Definition 12. Let be self-mappings on .
- (i)
The pair is said to be compatible if for a sequence with implies .
- (ii)
The pair is said to be -compatible (resp. -compatible, O-compatible) if for a sequence with and are increasing (resp. decreasing, monotone) sequences such that implies .
- (iii)
The pair is said to be weakly compatible if for a in X.
Remark 4. In , compatibility implies O-compatibility, which implies -compatibility (together with -compatibility), which also implies weak compatibility.
Now, we define the generalized definition due to [
20].
Definition 13. The ordered -metric space is said to have the g-ICU property if the g-image of every increasing convergent sequence is bounded above by the g-image of its limit (as an upper bound); that is, Observe that on setting
, Definition 13 is reduced to the ICU property and still remains a sharpened version of [
21].
Definition 14. Let be self-mappings .
- (i)
is considered to have the g-ICC property if every g-increasing convergent sequence has a subsequence such that the g-image of every element of is comparable with the limit of . - (ii)
is considered to have the g-DCC property if every g-decreasing convergent sequence has a subsequence such that the g-image of every element of is comparable with the limit of ; that is, - (iii)
is said to have a g-monotone-convergence-comparable (in short g-MCC) property if every g-monotone convergent sequence in X has a subsequence such that the g-image of every term of is comparable with the limit of , i.e.,
On setting , Definition 14 (i) (or (ii) or (iii)) reduces to the ICC (or DCC or MCC) property. Moreover, ICC (resp. DCC or MCC) is weaker then ICU (resp. DCL or MCB). Further, Definition 14 (i) is relatively weaker than the notion described in Definition 13.
Definition 15 ([
25])
. Let be an ordered, and g a self-mapping on Then Y is said to be g-directed if for every pair there exists with and Lemma 1 ([
20])
. Let be a pair of weakly compatible self-mappings defined on . Then, every point of coincidence of the pair remains a coincidence point. Lemma 2 ([
36])
. Suppose a sequence in such that If the sequence is not a Cauchy, then , and and of such that- (1)
- (2)
- (3)
- (4)
The sequences tend to ε when
The aim of this article is to prove common fixed point results for a pair of self-mappings satisfying ordered–theoretic contraction in the framework of
-metric space. In doing so, we improve Theorem 3.2 from Asim el al. [
2] in the following four-respects:
- (i)
The self-mapping is replaced by a pair of self-mappings to prove unique common fixed point results instead of fixed point results,
- (ii)
The weaker contraction is utilized—that is, ordered-theoretic contraction,
- (iii)
Relatively weaker notions of completeness and continuity are utilized,
- (iv)
The completeness of X is merely required on any subspace Y of X containing .
3. Main Results
Now, we state and prove our main results as follows:
Theorem 1. Let be an ordered -metric space with and Y an -complete subspace of X and such that f is a g-increasing. Suppose the following conditions hold:
- (i)
with
- (ii)
For all such that there exists such that - (iii)
- (iv)
Either
- (a)
f is -continuous or
- (b)
enjoys the g-ICC-property.
In these conditions, the pair has a coincidence point.
Proof. Choose a point
such that
Since the mapping
f is
g-increasing and
we can define increasing sequences
and
in
Y such that for all
Notice that, the sequences and are in If for some then is a coincidence point, which concludes the proof.
Henceforth, we assume that
for all
Now, we have to show that
By putting
and
in condition (
1), we get
for all
Therefore,
is a decreasing sequence of non-negative real numbers so that
By taking the superior limit as
in inequality (
3), we have
which implies that
a contraction unless
so that
Similarly, from condition (
1), we get
By taking the limit as
, we get
Firstly, we show that
for any
. On the contrary, if
for some
, then we have
. On using (
1) with
and
, we have
which is a contradiction. This in turn shows that
for all
.
Now, we assert that is Cauchy sequence. In doing so, we distinguish two cases.
Case 1. Firstly, let
p be odd, that is,
for any
. Now, using
for any
we have
yielding thereby
Letting
in (
5), we conclude that
Case 2. Secondly, assume that
p is even, that is,
for any
. Then,
so that
Taking the limit as
in the inequality (
6), we conclude that
Therefore, in both the cases, we have
On the other hand, without loss of generality, we may assume that
Taking the limit of the above inequality as
, we deduce that
Therefore, the sequence,
is Cauchy in
Y. Since
Y is
-complete, then there exists some
such that
Owing to condition (
1), there exists some
such that
, meaning that
We can now show that
z is a coincidence point of the pair
by using the condition
. Consider
f to be
-continuous. We find this as a result of condition (
8), in which we have
, which (as a result of (
2)) gives rise to
Alternately, assume that
has the
g-ICC-property. Then, there exists a subsequence
of
such that
On setting
,
in (
1), we have (for all
)
On using Equations (
2) and (
8) and taking the superior limit in (
9) as
, we have
which is a contradiction unless
This concludes the proof. □
By setting in Theorem 1, we deduce a new result for the ordered–theoretic coincidence point.
Corollary 1. Let be an ordered -metric space and such that f is a g-increasing. Suppose the following conditions hold:
- (i)
There exists an such that
- (ii)
For all such that there exists such that - (iii)
- (iv)
Either
- (a)
f is -continuous or
- (b)
is complete and enjoys the ICC-property.
Then, the pair has a coincidence point.
Choosing
(where
is an identity mapping) in the Theorem 1, we deduce the generalized version of the Theorem 3.2 due to Asim el al. [
2].
Corollary 2. Let be an ordered complete -metric space with and such that f is increasing. Suppose the following conditions hold:
- (1)
There exists an such that
- (2)
For all such that there exists such that - (3)
Either
- (a)
f is -continuous or
- (b)
enjoys the ICC-property.
Then, f has a fixed point.
Example 2. Consider . Define by (for all ): Note that every increasing Cauchy sequence is convergent in X. Therefore, is an -complete -metric space with coefficient .
Now, we define an ordered relation on X:where ≤ is the usual order. Define the mappings as follows: Observe that f is g-increasing and X has the g-ICC-property.
We distinguish two cases:
Case 1.Taking and Then, from (1), we have Case 2.Taking Then, we have If then condition (1) holds trivially. Thus, all the conditions of Theorems 1 are satisfied, and also the pair has a unique common fixed point (namely ). Now, one can conclude that the present example is not applicable for the fixed point results of Asim et al. [2], as the space is not complete but -complete -metric space. Moreover, it is easy to check that the contraction condition used in [2] does not hold for any . Now, we prove the result for a unique point of coincidence as follows:
Theorem 2. In Theorem 1, if we consider that is g-directed, then has a unique point of coincidence.
Proof. Suppose that the mapping f has two coincidence points, say a and b, i.e., and . We have shown that . Since is g-directed, there exists such that is comparable to both and . Now, we assume that and .
Set
. Since
, one can define a sequence
such that
Using condition (
1), we have (for all
)
Now,
is a decreasing sequence of non-negative real numbers. On the contrary, assume that there exists
such that
Again, by employing the contraction condition (
1), we obtain
Similarly, it is possible to demonstrate that
On using Equations (
11) and (
12), we have
Limiting as we get . Hence, the pair has a unique point of coincidence. □
Theorem 3. In Theorem 2, if we consider that the pair is weakly compatible, then has a unique common fixed point.
Proof. Allow to be an arbitrary coincidence point of the pair . There is a unique point of coincidence , for example, such that according to Theorem 2. As per Lemma 1, is a coincidence point, i.e., Theorem 2 provides i.e., is a unique common fixed point of f and □
Theorem 4. If we replace the conditions -complete, -continuous, and g-ICC with -complete (or O-complete), -continuous (or -continuous), and g-DCC (or g-MCC) and the property is followed by (or ), then the results of Theorems 1–3 remain true.