Abundant periodic and aperiodic solutions of a discontinuous three-term recurrence relation

In this note, we study a discontinuous three-term recurrence relation which arises from seeking the steady states of a cellular neural network with step control function. Several collections of periodic solutions are found. A necessary and sufficient condition for a solution to be periodic is stated and aperiodic solutions are found as consequences. We also show that any periodic solution can be derived from a primary periodic solution with least period not divisible by 5. Although the periodic or aperiodic solutions we found are not exhaustive, they are quite abundant and may reflect some of the rich physical phenomena in true biological systems. Our method in this note may also provide a general approach to analyze the periodicity of solutions of similar recurrence relations.