On the critical periods of perturbed isochronous centers

Consider a family of planar systems having a center at the origin and assume that for ε=0 they have an isochronous center. Firstly, we give an explicit formula for the first order term in ε of the derivative of the period function. We apply this formula to prove that, up to first order in ε, at most one critical period bifurcates from the periodic orbits of isochronous quadratic systems when we perturb them inside the class of quadratic reversible centers. Moreover necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of this critical period are explicitly given. From the tools developed in this paper we also provide a new characterization of planar isochronous centers.     

Discontinuous control problems for non-convex dynamics and near viability for singularly perturbed control systems

The aim of this paper is to study two classes of discontinuous control problems without any convexity assumption on the dynamics. In the first part we characterize the value function for the Mayer problem and the supremum cost problem using viscosity tools and the notion of ε-viability (near viability). These value functions are given with respect to discontinuous cost functionals. In the second part we obtain results describing the ε-viability (near viability) of singularly perturbed control systems.     

Asymmetric type II periodic motions for nonlinear impact oscillators

In this paper a general class of nonlinear impact oscillators is considered for Type II periodic motions. This system can be used to model an inverted pendulum impacting on rigid walls under external periodic excitation. The unperturbed system possesses a pair of homoclinic cycles and three separate families of periodic orbits inside and outside the homoclinic cycles via the identification given by the impact law. By approximating the Poincaré map to O(ε)$O\left(\epsilon \right)$ directly, a general method of Melnikov type for detecting the existence of asymmetric Type II subharmonic orbits outside the homoclinic cycles is presented.     

Viscous limits for piecewise smooth solutions of the p-system

We study the zero-dissipation problem for a one-dimensional model system for the isentropic flow of a compressible viscous gas, the so-called p-system with viscosity. When the solution of the inviscid problem is piecewise smooth and having finitely many noninteracting shocks satisfying the entropy condition, there exists unique solution to the viscous problem which converges to the given inviscid solution away from shock discontinuities at a rate of order ε as the viscosity coefficient ε goes to zero. The proof is given by a matched asymptotic analysis and an elementary energy method. And we do not need the smallness condition on the shock strength.     

Oscillation criteria for forced second-order nonlinear differential equations with damping

In this paper, we are concerned with oscillations in a class of forced second-order differential equations with nonlinear damping terms. By using a classical variational principle and an averaging technique, several new interval oscillation criteria for the equations are established, which improve and extend some known results. An example is also given to illustrate the results.     

An almost fourth order uniformly convergent domain decomposition method for a coupled system of singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion equations

We consider a system of M(≥2) singularly perturbed equations of reaction-diffusion type coupled through the reaction term. A high order Schwarz domain decomposition method is developed to solve the system numerically. The method splits the original domain into three overlapping subdomains. On two boundary layer subdomains we use a compact fourth order difference scheme on a uniform mesh while on the interior subdomain we use a hybrid scheme on a uniform mesh. We prove that the method is almost fourth order ε-uniformly convergent. Furthermore, we prove that when ε is small, one iteration is sufficient to get almost fourth order ε-uniform convergence. Numerical experiments are performed to support the theoretical results.     

A regularization for discontinuous differential equations with application to state-dependent delay differential equations of neutral type

We consider a regularization for a class of discontinuous differential equations arising in the study of neutral delay differential equations with state dependent delays. For such equations the possible discontinuity in the derivative of the solution at the initial point may propagate along the integration interval giving rise to so-called “breaking points”, where the solution derivative is again discontinuous. Consequently, the problem of continuing the solution in a right neighborhood of a breaking point is equivalent to a Cauchy problem for an ode with a discontinuous right-hand side (see e.g. Bellen et al., 2009 [4]). Therefore a classical solution may cease to exist.The regularization is based on the replacement of the vector-field with its time average over an interval of length ε>0. The regularized solution converges as ε→⁰⁺ to the classical Filippov solution (Filippov, 1964, 1988 [13] and [14]). Several properties of the solutions corresponding to small ε>0 are presented.     

High order parameter-robust numerical method for singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion problems

We present a high order parameter-robust finite difference method for singularly perturbed reaction-diffusion problems. The problem is discretized using a suitable combination of fourth order compact difference scheme and central difference scheme on generalized Shishkin mesh. The convergence analysis is given and the method is proved to be almost fourth order uniformly convergent in maximum norm with respect to singular perturbation parameter ε. Numerical experiments are conducted to demonstrate the theoretical results.     

On the number of limit cycles in small perturbations of a class of hyper-elliptic Hamiltonian systems with one nilpotent saddle

In this paper, we make a complete study on small perturbations of Hamiltonian vector field with a hyper-elliptic Hamiltonian of degree five, which is a Liénard system of the form x^′=y, y^′=Q₁(x)+εyQ₂(x) with Q₁ and Q₂ polynomials of degree respectively 4 and 3. It is shown that this system can undergo degenerated Hopf bifurcation and Poincaré bifurcation, which emerges at most three limit cycles in the plane for sufficiently small positive ε. And the limit cycles can encompass only an equilibrium inside, i.e. the configuration (3,0) of limit cycles can appear for some values of parameters, where (3,0) stands for three limit cycles surrounding an equilibrium and no limit cycles surrounding two equilibria.     

A novel mathematical modeling of multiple scales for a class of two dimensional singular perturbed problems

A novel mathematical modeling of multiple scales (NMMMS) is presented for a class of singular perturbed problems with both boundary or transition layers in two dimensions. The original problems are converted into a series of problems with different scales, and under these different scales, each of the problem is regular. The rational spectral collocation method (RSCM) is applied to deal with the problems without singularities. NMMMS can still work successfully even when the parameter ε is extremely small (ε = 10^?25 or even smaller). A brief error estimate for the model problem is given in Section 2. Numerical examples are implemented to show the method is of high accuracy and efficiency.     

Asymptotic preconditioning of linear homogeneous systems of differential equations

We consider the asymptotic behavior of solutions of a linear differential system x^′=A(t)x, where A is continuous on an interval ([a,∞). We are interested in the situation where the system may not have a desirable asymptotic property such as stability, strict stability, uniform stability, or linear asymptotic equilibrium, but its solutions can be written as x=Pu, where P is continuously differentiable on [a,∞) and u is a solution of a system u^′=B(t)u that has the property in question. In this case we say that P preconditions the given system for the property in question.     

Two-dimensional Fuchsian systems and the Chebyshev property

Let (x(t),y(t))^? be a solution of a Fuchsian system of order two with three singular points. The vector space of functions of the form P(t)x(t)+Q(t)y(t), where P,Q are real polynomials, has a natural filtration of vector spaces, according to the asymptotic behavior of the functions at infinity. We describe a two-parameter class of Fuchsian systems, for which the corresponding vector spaces obey the Chebyshev property (the maximal number of isolated zeros of each function is less than the dimension of the vector space). Up to now, only a few particular systems were known to possess such a non-oscillation property. It is remarkable that most of these systems are of the type studied in the present paper. We apply our results in estimating the number of limit cycles that appear after small polynomial perturbations of several quadratic or cubic Hamiltonian systems in the plane.     

On the number of zeros of Abelian integrals for a polynomial Hamiltonian irregular at infinity

Up to now, most of the results on the tangential Hilbert 16th problem have been concerned with the Hamiltonian regular at infinity, i.e., its principal homogeneous part is a product of the pairwise different linear forms. In this paper, we study a polynomial Hamiltonian which is not regular at infinity. It is shown that the space of Abelian integral for this Hamiltonian is finitely generated as a R[h] module by several basic integrals which satisfy the Picard-Fuchs system of linear differential equations. Applying the bound meandering principle, an upper bound for the number of complex isolated zeros of Abelian integrals is obtained on a positive distance from critical locus. This result is a partial solution of tangential Hilbert 16th problem for this Hamiltonian. As a consequence, we get an upper bound of the number of limit cycles produced by the period annulus of the non-Hamiltonian integrable quadratic systems whose almost all orbits are algebraic curves of degree k+n, under polynomial perturbation of arbitrary degree.     

Validity of the multiple scale method for very long intervals

For a class of nonlinear oscillation problems containing a small parameter, it is known that a two-scale method using timest and t gives results valid to any desired order for time (1/). We ask when results can be obtained which are valid for (1/²) or for allt > 0. We show that there is an obstruction to introducing a third time scale ² t, and give an example in which this obstruction does not vanish, so that a third scale cannot be introduced, even though the solution exists for all time. The obstruction does vanish if the first order averaged equation vanishes, in which case the three-scale solution actually involves onlyt and ² t and is valid for time (1/²). The obstruction also vanishes if a certain contracting or dissipative condition is met, but in this case the two-scale solution is already valid for all time and the third scale is not needed. These results correspond to known results for the method of averaging, but are here proved for the multiple scale method without use of averaging.     

Periodic orbits for perturbations of piecewise linear systems

We consider the existence of periodic orbits in a class of three-dimensional piecewise linear systems. Firstly, we describe the dynamical behavior of a non-generic piecewise linear system which has two equilibria and one two-dimensional invariant manifold foliated by periodic orbits. The aim of this work is to study the periodic orbits of the continuum that persist under a piecewise linear perturbation of the system. In order to analyze this situation, we build a real function of real variable whose zeros are related to the limit cycles that remain after the perturbation. By using this function, we state some results of existence and stability of limit cycles in the perturbed system, as well as results of bifurcations of limit cycles. The techniques presented are similar to the Melnikov theory for smooth systems and the method of averaging.     

Analysis of a finite-difference scheme for a singularly perturbed problem with two small parameters

We study a model linear convection-diffusion-reaction problem where both the diffusion term and the convection term are multiplied by small parameters ε_d and ε_c, respectively. Depending on the size of the parameters the solution of the problem may exhibit exponential layers at both end points of the domain. Sharp bounds for the derivatives of the solution are derived using a barrier-function technique. These bounds are applied in the analysis of a simple upwind-difference scheme on Shishkin meshes. This method is established to be almost first-order convergent, independently of the parameters ε_d and ε_c.     

Bifurcation and chaos near sliding homoclinics

We study the chaotic behaviour of a time dependent perturbation of a discontinuous differential equation whose unperturbed part has a sliding homoclinic orbit that is a solution homoclinic to a hyperbolic fixed point with a part belonging to a discontinuity surface. We assume the time dependent perturbation satisfies a kind of recurrence condition which is satisfied by almost periodic perturbations. Following a functional analytic approach we construct a Melnikov-like function M(α) in such a way that if M(α) has a simple zero at some point, then the system has solutions that behave chaotically. Applications of this result to quasi-periodic systems are also given.     

Nodal solutions of multi-point boundary value problems

We study the nonlinear boundary value problem consisting of the equation y^″+w(t)f(y)=0 on [a,b] and a multi-point boundary condition. By relating it to the eigenvalues of a linear Sturm-Liouville problem with a two-point separated boundary condition, we obtain results on the existence and nonexistence of nodal solutions of this problem. We also discuss the changes in the existence question for different types of nodal solutions as the problem changes.     

On Hopf bifurcation in non-smooth planar systems

As we know, for non-smooth planar systems there are foci of three different types, called focus-focus (FF), focus-parabolic (FP) and parabolic-parabolic (PP) type respectively. The Poincaré map with its analytical property and the problem of Hopf bifurcation have been studied in Coll et al. (2001) [3] and Filippov (1988) [6] for general systems and in Zou et al. (2006) [13] for piecewise linear systems. In this paper we also study the problem of Hopf bifurcation for non-smooth planar systems, obtaining new results. More precisely, we prove that one or two limit cycles can be produced from an elementary focus of the least order (order 1 for foci of FF or FP type and order 2 for foci of PP type) (Theorem 2.3), different from the case of smooth systems. For piecewise linear systems we prove that 2 limit cycles can appear near a focus of either FF, FP or PP type (Theorem 3.3).     

Perturbations of symmetric elliptic Hamiltonians of degree four

In this paper four-parameter unfoldings Xλ of symmetric elliptic Hamiltonians of degree four are studied. We prove that in a compact region of the period annulus of X₀ the displacement function of Xλ is sign equivalent to its principal part, which is given by a family induced by a Chebychev system; and we describe the bifurcation diagram of Xλ in a full neighborhood of the origin in the parameter space, where at most two limit cycles can exist for the corresponding systems.