Generalized Cauchy type problems for nonlinear fractional differential equations with composite fractional derivative operator

This paper is devoted to proving the existence and uniqueness of solutions to Cauchy type problems for fractional differential equations with composite fractional derivative operator on a finite interval of the real axis in spaces of summable functions. An approach based on the equivalence of the nonlinear Cauchy type problem to a nonlinear Volterra integral equation of the second kind and applying a variant of the Banach's fixed point theorem to prove uniqueness and existence of the solution is presented. The Cauchy type problems for integro-differential equations of Volterra type with composite fractional derivative operator, which contain the generalized Mittag-Leffler function in the kernel, are considered. Using the method of successive approximation, and the Laplace transform method, explicit solutions of the open problem proposed by Srivastava and Tomovski (2009) [11] are established in terms of the multinomial Mittag-Leffler function. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.