Limit cycles near generalized homoclinic and double homoclinic loops in piecewise smooth systems

In this paper, we study the bifurcation of limit cycles in piecewise smooth systems by perturbing a piecewise Hamiltonian system with a generalized homoclinic or generalized double homoclinic loop. We first obtain the form of the expansion of the first Melnikov function. Then by using the first coefficients in the expansion, we give some new results on the number of limit cycles bifurcated from a periodic annulus near the generalized (double) homoclinic loop. As applications, we study the number of limit cycles of a piecewise near-Hamiltonian systems with a generalized homoclinic loop and a central symmetric piecewise smooth system with a generalized double homoclinic loop.     

Bifurcation of periodic orbits emanated from a vertex in discontinuous planar systems

We discuss bifurcation of periodic orbits in discontinuous planar systems with discontinuities on finitely many straight lines intersecting at the origin and the unperturbed system has either a limit cycle or an annulus of periodic orbits. Assume that the unperturbed periodic orbits cross every switching line transversally exactly once. For the first case we give a condition for the persistence of the limit cycle. For the second case, we obtain the expression of the first order Melnikov function and establish sufficient conditions on the number of limit cycles bifurcate from the periodic annulus. Then we generalize our results to systems with discontinuities on finitely many smooth curves. As an application, we present a piecewise cubic system with 4 switching lines and show that the maximum number of limit cycles bifurcate from the periodic annulus can be affected by the position of the switching lines.     

On the maximum number of periodic solutions of piecewise smooth periodic equations by average method

In this paper, we prove smoothness of bifurcation function for a piecewise smooth periodic equation, and then use the bifurcation function together with its smoothness to study the maximum number of periodic solutions of the piecewise smooth periodic equation by the first order average.     

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.     

Limit cycle bifurcations near generalized homoclinic loop in piecewise smooth systems with a cusp

For a piecewise analytical Hamiltonian system with a cusp on a switch line, which has a family of periodic orbits near a generalized homoclinic loop, we study the maximum number of limit cycles bifurcating from the periodic orbits. For doing so, we first obtain the asymptotic expressions of the Melnikov functions near the loop. Finally we present two examples illustrating applications of the main results.     

Oscillatory and Periodic Solutions of Impulsive Differential Equations with Piecewise Constant Argument

We study the existence of oscillatory and periodic solutions of a class of first order scalar impulsive delay differential equations with piecewise constant argument.     

Bifurcation of limit cycles from generalized homoclinic loops in planar piecewise smooth systems

The generalized homoclinic loop appears in the study of dynamics on piecewise smooth differential systems during the past two decades. For planar piecewise smooth differential systems, there are concrete examples showing that under suitable perturbations of a generalized homoclinic loop one or two limit cycles can appear. But up to now there is no a general theory to study the cyclicity of a generalized homoclinic loop, that is, the maximal number of limit cycles which are bifurcated from it.     

Nonsmooth bifurcations of equilibria in planar continuous systems

In this paper we present a procedure to find all limit sets near bifurcating equilibria in a class of hybrid systems described by continuous, piecewise smooth differential equations. For this purpose, the dynamics near the bifurcating equilibrium is locally approximated as a piecewise affine systems defined on a conic partition of the plane. To guarantee that all limit sets are identified, conditions for the existence or absence of limit cycles are presented. Combining these results with the study of return maps, a procedure is presented for a local bifurcation analysis of bifurcating equilibria in continuous, piecewise smooth systems. With this procedure, all limit sets that are created or destroyed by the bifurcation are identified in a computationally feasible manner.     

Piecewise-linearized methods for oscillators with limit cycles

A piecewise linearization method based on the linearization of nonlinear ordinary differential equations in small intervals, that provides piecewise analytical solutions in each interval and smooth solutions everywhere, is developed for the study of the limit cycles of smooth and non-smooth, conservative and non-conservative, nonlinear oscillators. It is shown that this method provides nonlinear maps for the displacement and velocity which depend on the previous values through the nonlinearity and its partial derivatives with respect to time, displacement and velocity, and yields non-standard finite difference formulae. It is also shown by means of five examples that the piecewise linearization method presented here is more robust and yields more accurate (in terms of displacement, energy and frequency) solutions than the harmonic balance procedure, the method of slowly varying amplitude and phase, and other non-standard finite difference equations.     

Limit cycle bifurcations by perturbing piecewise smooth Hamiltonian systems with multiple parameters

This paper is concerned with the problem of limit cycle bifurcation for piecewise smooth near-Hamiltonian systems with multiple parameters. By the first Melnikov function, some novel criteria have been established for the existence of multiple limit cycles. Furthermore, an example is included to validate the obtained results by considering the maximum number of limit cycles for a piecewise quadratic system studied in Llibre and Mereu (2014) [12]. Compared with the result in the above reference, one more limit cycle is found by our method.     

Infinite horizon noncooperative differential games with nonsmooth costs

For a noncooperative differential game, the value functions of the various players satisfy a system of Hamilton-Jacobi equations. In the present paper, we study a class of infinite-horizon scalar games with either piecewise linear or piecewise smooth costs, exponentially discounted in time. By the analysis of the value functions, we find that results about existence and uniqueness of admissible solutions to the HJ system, and therefore of Nash equilibrium solutions in feedback form, can be recovered as in the smooth costs case, provided the costs are globally monotone. On the other hand, we present examples of costs such that the corresponding HJ system has infinitely many admissible solutions or no admissible solutions at all, suggesting that new concepts of equilibria may be needed to study games with general nonlinear costs.     

The Number of Limit Cycles in a Class of Piecewise Polynomial Systems

In this paper, we pay attention to the number of limit cycles for a class of piecewise smooth near-Hamiltonian systems. By using the expression of the first order Melnikov function and some known results about Chebyshev systems, we study upper bound of the number of limit cycles in Hopf bifurcation and Poincar\''{e} bifurcation respectively.     

Finite Element Solution of Conical Diffraction Problems

This paper is devoted to the numerical study of diffraction by periodic structures of plane waves under oblique incidence. For this situation Maxwell's equations can be reduced to a system of two Helmholtz equations in R ² coupled via quasiperiodic transmission conditions on the piecewise smooth interfaces between different materials. The numerical analysis is based on a strongly elliptic variational formulation of the differential problem in a bounded periodic cell involving nonlocal boundary operators. We obtain existence and uniqueness results for discrete solutions and provide the corresponding error analysis.     

Oscillatory and periodic solutions of differential equations with piecewise constant generalized mixed arguments

We study scalar advanced and delayed differential equations with piecewise constant generalized arguments, in short DEPCAG of mixed type, that is, the arguments are general step functions. It is shown that the argument deviation generates, under certain conditions, oscillations of the solutions, which is an impossible phenomenon for the corresponding equation without the argument deviations. Criteria for existence of periodic solutions of such equations are discussed. New criteria extend and improve related results reported in the literature. The efficiency of our criteria is illustrated via several numerical examples and simulations.     

On Quasi-Periodic Solutions of Differential Equations with Piecewise Constant Argument

We study the existence of quasi-periodic solutions to differential equations with piecewise constant argument (EPCA, for short). It is shown that EPCA with periodic perturbations possess a quasi-periodic solution and no periodic solution. The appearance of quasi-periodic rather than periodic solutions is due to the piecewise constant argument. This new phenomenon illustrates a crucial difference between ODE and EPCA. The results are extended to nonlinear equations.     

Low Mach number limit of inviscid Hookean elastodynamics

The low Mach number limit of inviscid Hookean elastodynamic equations is rigorously proved in bounded domain, whole space and periodic domain, respectively. The uniform existence of smooth solutions and convergence results as the Mach number tends to zero are obtained in three different domains.     

Bifurcation of limit cycles by perturbing a piecewise linear Hamiltonian system with a homoclinic loop

In this paper, we study limit cycle bifurcations for a kind of non-smooth polynomial differential systems by perturbing a piecewise linear Hamiltonian system with the center at the origin and a homoclinic loop around the origin. By using the first Melnikov function of piecewise near-Hamiltonian systems, we give lower bounds of the maximal number of limit cycles in Hopf and homoclinic bifurcations, and derive an upper bound of the number of limit cycles that bifurcate from the periodic annulus between the center and the homoclinic loop up to the first order in ε$\epsilon$. In the case when the degree of perturbing terms is low, we obtain a precise result on the number of zeros of the first Melnikov function.     

Inviscid Limit for Scalar Viscous Conservation Laws in Presence of Strong Shocks and Boundary Layers

In this paper, we study the inviscid limit problem for the scalar viscous conservation laws on half plane. We prove that if the solution of the corresponding inviscid equation on half plane is piecewise smooth with a single shock satisfying the entropy condition, then there exist solutions to the viscous conservation laws which converge to the inviscid solution away fromthe shock discontinuity and the boundary at a rate of ε^1 as the viscosity ε tends to zero.     

The planar discontinuous piecewise linear refracting systems have at most one limit cycle

In this paper we investigate the limit cycles of planar piecewise linear differential systems with two zones separated by a straight line. It is well known that when these systems are continuous they can exhibit at most one limit cycle, while when they are discontinuous the question about maximum number of limit cycles that they can exhibit is still open. For these last systems there are examples exhibiting three limit cycles.The aim of this paper is to study the number of limit cycles for a special kind of planar discontinuous piecewise linear differential systems with two zones separated by a straight line which are known as refracting systems. First we obtain the existence and uniqueness of limit cycles for refracting systems of focus-node type. Second we prove that refracting systems of focus–focus type have at most one limit cycle, thus we give a positive answer to a conjecture on the uniqueness of limit cycle stated by Freire, Ponce and Torres in Freire et al. (2013). These two results complete the proof that any refracting system has at most one limit cycle.     

Analysis of Sharp Superconvergence of Local Discontinuous Galerkin Method for One-Dimensional Linear Parabolic Equations

In this paper, we study the superconvergence of the error for the local discontinuous Galerkin (LDG) finite element method for one-dimensional linear parabolic equations when the alternating flux is used. We prove that if we apply piecewise $k$-th degree polynomials, the error between the LDG solution and the exact solution is ($k$+2)-th order superconvergent at the Radau points with suitable initial discretization. Moreover, we also prove the LDG solution is ($k$+2)-th order superconvergent for the error to a particular projection of the exact solution. Even though we only consider periodic boundary condition, this boundary condition is not essential, since we do not use Fourier analysis. Our analysis is valid for arbitrary regular meshes and for $P^k$ polynomials with arbitrary $k$ ≥ 1. We perform numerical experiments to demonstrate that the superconvergence rates proved in this paper are sharp.