The stability of the equilibrium of a nonlinear planar system and application to the relativistic oscillator (Q1025006)

The authors study the stability of a special type of nonlinear planar time-periodic system and generalise results of \textit{R. Ortega}, called third order approximation, cf. [J. Dyn. Differ. Equations 4, No.~4, 651--665 (1992; Zbl 0761.34036), SIAM J. Math. Anal. 25, No.~5, 1393--1401 (1994; Zbl 0807.34065), J. Differ. Equations 128, No. 2, 491--518 (1996; Zbl 0855.34058), Ten mathematical essays on approximation in analysis and topology. Amsterdam: Elsevier. 215--234 (2005; Zbl 1090.34045)]. In particular, they consider the system \[ \begin{cases} \dot{x}=a(t)y+c(t)y^{2n-1}+\frac{\partial G}{\partial y}(t,x,y),\\ \dot{y}=-b(t)x-d(t)x^{2n-1}-\frac{\partial G}{\partial x}(t,x,y), \end{cases}\tag{1} \] where \(a,b,c,d\) are \(T\)-periodic functions, and \(n\geq2\). Moreover, \(G: \mathbb R\times B_\epsilon(0)\rightarrow \mathbb R \) is a continuous, \(T\)-periodic function with continuous derivatives of all orders with respect to \((x,y)\), and \(G(t,x,y)=O((x^2+y^2)^{n+1/2})\) as \((x,y)\rightarrow 0\), uniformly with respect to \(t\in \mathbb R\). The main result Theorem 3.5 is that if the trivial solution of the corresponding linear system problem is stable, \(\int_0^T |c(t)|\, dt\not=0\), \(\int_0^T |d(t)|\, dt\not=0\), and one of the following two conditions holds (\(H_1\)) \(c(t)\geq 0\), \(d(t)\geq 0\), (\(H_2\)) \(c(t)\leq 0\), \(d(t)\leq 0\), then the trivial solution of (1) is stable. The proof uses a reduction to a special case; they show that when a linear periodic planar Hamiltonian system is elliptic, there always exists a translation of time, which transforms the system into an \(R\)-elliptic one, i.e. the monodromy matrix of the transformed equation is a rigid rotation. The main result is applied the relativistic oscillator.