1. Introduction and Preliminaries
Fixed point theory plays a fundamental role in nonlinear analysis, with applications ranging from differential equations to optimization problems. Classical results such as the Banach contraction principle provide powerful tools for self-mappings, but in many practical situations one encounters non-self mappings, where the appropriate substitute is the notion of best proximity points.
The development of the field has proceeded through several key milestones. In 1968, Kannan introduced a celebrated generalization of Banach’s contraction principle by proving that for a complete metric space
, any mapping
satisfying
with
, admits a unique fixed point [
1]. A remarkable feature of Kannan’s theorem is that no continuity assumption on
T is required. Later, Ariza-Ruiz and Jiménez-Melado (2010) extended this result by introducing
weakly Kannan maps, in which the contractive coefficient depends on the points
. More precisely, there exists
such that
with the uniform bound
for all
[
1]. This flexibility allows one to capture the behavior of a wider class of nonlinear operators.
The move from fixed point results to best proximity point results was initiated by Sadiq Basha (2011), who introduced the concept of
proximal contractions and established best proximity point theorems for non-self mappings [
7]. The key idea is to characterize conditions under which, even in the absence of fixed points, one can still guarantee the existence of a point
such that the distance between
and its image
is minimal. Best proximity point results for Geraghty-type proximal contraction mappings were later developed in [
6].
Subsequent work by Moradi provided a different perspective by introducing the use of an auxiliary function. Specifically, for mappings
in a metric space
, it was shown in [
5] that if
S is one-to-one, continuous, and sequentially convergent, and if
for some constant
, then
T possesses a best proximity point.
Building on these foundations, the present work introduces two novel classes of mappings: proximal Geraghty and proximal Kannan–Geraghty mappings of the first kind. We establish existence and uniqueness theorems for these mappings and illustrate, by examples, that the auxiliary conditions we impose are both natural and necessary. Before turning to our main results, we recall some fundamental concepts from best proximity theory.
Definition 1
([
8]).
Let be nonempty subsets of a metric space . Thebest proximity sets
and are defined as
where
denotes the minimal distance between A and B.
When
A and
B are closed subsets of a normed linear space with
, it is known that both
and
lie on the boundaries of their respective sets [
7].
Definition 2
([
8]).
Given a mapping , a point is called a best proximity point
of T if
Definition 3
([
7]).
A mapping is called a proximal contraction of the first kind
if there exists such that for all ,
For self-maps, this reduces exactly to the Banach contraction principle; for non-self maps, proximal contractions need not be contractions in the usual sense.
Corollary 1
([
4]).
Let be nonempty closed subsets of a complete metric space such that and are nonempty. Suppose and satisfy:
g is one-to-one and continuous, and is uniformly continuous;
T is a proximal contraction of the first kind with .
Then there exists a unique such that . Moreover, for any , the sequence defined by converges to .
When , we simply say that is a proximal contraction if condition (b) holds.
Definition 4
([
4]).
Let be a nonempty pair of subsets of a metric space . A mapping is called a proximal Kannan non-self mapping
if there exists such that for all with
we have
where
The class of proximal Kannan non-self mappings properly contains the class of Kannan non-self mappings.
Definition 5
(Weak Proximal Kannan Non-Self Mapping [
4]).
Let be a metric space, and let . A mapping is called a weak proximal Kannan non-self mapping
if there exists such that for all with
the implication
holds, where .
Theorem 1
([
4]).
Let be a nonempty pair of subsets of a complete metric space such that is nonempty and closed. If is a weak proximal Kannan non-self mapping with , then there exists a unique such that . Moreover, if satisfies , then .
Definition 6
([
9]).
Let be a metric space. A mapping is called a Geraghty contraction
if there exists such that
where Γ denotes the class of functions with the property that
Theorem 2
([
9]).
Let be a complete metric space and a Geraghty contraction. Then T has a unique fixed point.
According to [
12], let
be a metric space. A mapping
is said to be a
Kannan–Geraghty self-mapping if there exists a function
such that, for all
,
This definition combines the features of Kannan mappings with the flexibility of Geraghty-type control functions. Motivated by this, we now develop the non-self, proximal analogues.
2. Main Results
In this section, we introduce S-proximal contraction non-self mappings and S-proximal Kannan non-self mappings, and establish sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of best proximity points in complete metric spaces. Before stating the main theorems, we recall the notion of an auxiliary function.
Definition 7.
Let be a metric space, and let . A mapping is called an auxiliary function if and .
Theorem 3
(Extended Proximal Geraghty of the First Kind). Let be a pair of nonempty subsets of a complete metric space such that and are nonempty and closed. Let S be an auxiliary function that is continuous on A and B, one-to-one, subsequentially convergent, and satisfies and .
Suppose is a mapping such that , and assume that for all ,
where (that is, T is an S-proximal Geraghty contraction).Then there exists a unique such that
Moreover, if is a sequence satisfying
then .
Proof. We first introduce the images of the proximity sets under
S:
Let
. Since
, we have
and hence
. Thus, there exists
with
Iterating this construction, we obtain a sequence
such that
Set
For each
, apply the
S-proximal Geraghty condition with
Then, by (
3),
so the hypothesis is satisfied and we obtain
that is,
By the standard argument in Geraghty’s fixed point theorem (see [
9]), (
4) implies that
and that
is a Cauchy sequence in
X. Since
X is complete and
is closed, there exists
such that
Because
S is subsequentially convergent,
has a subsequence
converging to some
. By continuity of
S,
Comparing with (
5), we conclude
.
We claim
u is the unique best proximity point of
T. Since
and
, there exists
with
. Combining this with (
3) for the subsequence
, we have
Applying the contractive condition with
we obtain
Letting
, we obtain
, hence
. Since
S is one-to-one,
. Thus
u is a best proximity point of
T.
Finally, for uniqueness, suppose
are two distinct best proximity points, so that
for
. Applying the contractive condition with
,
,
,
gives
which is impossible unless
. Hence
. □
We emphasize that the assumption of subsequential convergence of S in Theorem 3 cannot be omitted. This is demonstrated by an example (see Example 1 below).
In the next result, we extend the notion of proximal Kannan non-self mappings introduced by Gabeleh [
4] to a Geraghty-type setting.
Theorem 4
(Extended Proximal Kannan–Geraghty of the First Kind).
Let be a pair of nonempty subsets of a complete metric space such that and are nonempty and closed. Let S be an auxiliary function that is continuous on A and B, one-to-one, and subsequentially convergent, with and . Suppose is a mapping with , and assume that for all ,
where and
Then there exists a unique point such that
Moreover, if is a sequence satisfying
then .
Proof.
Let
. Since
, we have
, hence
. Thus there exists
such that
Proceeding inductively, we obtain a sequence
with
Set again
for
. For each
, apply (
6) with
Using (
7), we obtain
By the triangle inequality and (
7),
and similarly
. Hence
Rearranging,
and therefore
Since
for all
t, the right-hand side is finite. As in the standard Kannan–Geraghty argument (cf. [
9,
12]), (
8) implies that
and that
is a Cauchy sequence in
X. Because
X is complete and
is closed, there exists
such that
Since
S is subsequentially convergent,
has a subsequence
converging to some
. By continuity of
S,
Comparing with (
9), we conclude
.
We claim
u is the unique best proximity point of
T. Since
and
, there exists
with
. Combining this with (
7), for the subsequence
we have
Applying the contractive condition (
6) with
we obtain
Letting
and using the convergence of
, we obtain
, hence
. Since
S is one-to-one,
. Thus
u is a best proximity point of
T.
Uniqueness follows similarly: if
are both best proximity points, then, using (
6) with
,
,
,
, we get
but both defect terms vanish (since
), so the right-hand side is zero. Hence
, and injectivity of
S yields
. □
Example 1.
Consider the metric space
with the Euclidean metric. Define
For and ,
so
Let be given by
and let be defined by
Clearly S is one-to-one, and . Moreover, .
We first note that T has no best proximity point. Indeed, a best proximity point would have to satisfy
However,
for all , so no such t exists.
On the other hand, consider the sequence . We have
so converges in X, but has no convergent subsequence in A itself (the second coordinate diverges to ). Hence S fails to be subsequentially convergent in the sense required by Theorems 3 and 4.
In this example, the S-proximal Geraghty (or Kannan–Geraghty) condition is satisfied only vacuously, since there are no quadruples with
as one checks directly from the form of S and T. Nevertheless, the lack of subsequential convergence of S is accompanied by the failure of T to admit a best proximity point, showing that the subsequential convergence assumption on S is essential.
3. Application
In image registration and alignment problems, simplified geometric configurations are often used to analyze the behavior of matching schemes; see, for example, [
10,
11]. Motivated by this viewpoint, we present an explicit non-self alignment mapping on subsets of
in which all assumptions of our main results are verified directly.
3.1. Geometric Setting
Fix
and consider the subsets
of
endowed with the Euclidean metric
d. Since
is compact,
is a complete metric space.
For
and
,
and this distance equals
if and only if
. Hence
and both
and
are nonempty and closed.
Define
by
Then S is continuous, injective, , , and trivially subsequentially convergent.
3.2. Definition of the Non-Self Mapping
Let
and define
by
Since for all , it follows that .
3.3. Verification of the S-Proximal Geraghty Condition
Let
. Assume
Using
and
, these equalities become
Since
each equality holds if and only if
and
. Thus
and hence
Define
by
. Since
, we have
, and therefore
holds for all
satisfying the proximal hypotheses. Hence
T is an
S-proximal Geraghty contraction.
3.4. Best Proximity Point
By Theorem 3, there exists a unique
such that
Writing
, we compute
This equals
if and only if
. Therefore,
is the unique best proximity pair.
3.5. Convergence of the Proximal Sequence
Let
be arbitrary and define
by
With
, this becomes
which implies
. Thus
3.6. Kannan–Geraghty Variant
For the setting of Theorem 4, one may take
The proximal conditions again force
, and the defining inequality of the proximal Kannan–Geraghty condition holds trivially. The unique best proximity point is again
.
Author Contributions
Conceptualization, F.F.; methodology, F.F.; formal analysis, F.F.; writing—original draft preparation, F.F.; writing—review and editing, S.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.
Funding
This research received no external funding.
Conflicts of Interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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