Orbital stability for ordinary differential equations (Q1095299)

The author provides a new method for proving the existence of stable closed trajectories for a class of autonomous ordinary differential equations in \(R^ n\), (1) \(x'=f(x)\). The main result can be quoted easily. Theorem. If (1) satisfies (H1) and (H2) and D contains no critical points of (1), then each semi-orbit in D converges to a closed trajectory as \(t\to \infty\) and D contains at least one closed trajectory which is orbitally stable. If, in addition, f(x) is analytic on S then D contains only a finite number of closed trajectories and at least one of these is asymptotically orbitally stable. (H1) is a technical assumption about f and (H2) asserts the existence of a positively invariant set D. A second theorem treats the case that D contains exactly one critical point. Applications are given to a model of a circuit containing a pentode valve and to a model of certain biochemical reactions concerned with protein synthesis.