Floquet multipliers and secondary bifurcations in functional differential equations: Numerical and analytical results (Q1905432)

The paper deals with Floquet multipliers of the periodic solution of the differential delay equation \[ x'(t)= - f(x(t), x(t- a)),\;a> 0,\;f: \mathbb{R}\times \mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}.\tag{1} \] Special symmetric solutions of (1) and the bifurcation from the trivial solution are considered. This result goes back to the Kaplan-Yorke primary branch for \(x'(t)= -\alpha g(x(t- 1))\). The authors consider the characterization of the Floquet multipliers as the squares of the eigenvalues of the associated boundary value problem for some ordinary differential equation. The aim of the paper is to present numerical calculations of special symmetric solutions and of characteristic functions. Essential methods for special symmetric solutions with countably many secondary bifurcations for sine-like nonlinearities are described. Numerical calculations of Poincaré maps associated with delay equations are given. Possible explanations of numerical behavior, observations on bifurcations, irregular motion and some conjectures about solutions are added.