Degenerate Hopf bifurcation and isolas of periodic solutions in an enzyme-catalyzed reaction model (Q1260905)

The model being investigated is a planar, autonomous system (1) \(\dot s=s_ 0-s-\rho R(s,a)\), \(\dot a=\alpha(a_ 0-a)- \rho R(s,a)\), where \(R(s,a):= sa/(1+ s+\kappa s^ 2)\). (1) describes an enzyme reaction system with \(s\) and \(a\) denoting concentrations of the substrate and the activator. The \(s\)-component of the equilibrium (called \(s_*\)) is treated as the bifurcation parameter (instead of \(\rho\)), \(a_ 0\) and \(s_ 0\) as control parameters while \(\alpha\) and \(\kappa\) are kept fixed in a very small region \(R_ 1\). Transforming (1) into a Poincaré-Birkhoff (P-B) normal form at a Hopf bifurcation point and using an error estimation for Newton's method of Kantorovich type, it is possible to prove that for \((\alpha,\kappa)\in R_ 1\) (1) possesses a degenerate Hopf point at \(s_*=s_*^ d\), \(a_ 0=a_ 0^ d\), \(s_ 0=s_ 0^ d\) in the following sense: three equations are satisfied, namely \(\sigma=0\) (eigenvalue characterization of a Hopf point), \(\partial\sigma/\partial s_*=0\) (degenerate Hopf point by the loss of the eigenvalue transversality) and \(a_ 1=0\) (here \(a_ 1\) is the coefficient of the P-B normal form the sign of which determines the sub- or supercriticality of the Hopf point). The main theorem in the paper guarantees the existence of six curves in the \((s_ 0,a_ 0)\)-plane through \((s_ 0^ d,a_ 0^ d)\) such that the bifurcation diagrams for branches of periodic orbits in dependence on \(s_*\) are qualitatively different in the regions the plane is divided into by the six curves. In one region, isolas of periodic solutions are found. The proof of this theorem is based on a rigorous connection (using MACSYMA programs) to a universal unfolding of the \(\mathbb{Z}_ 2\)-normal form \(X^ 5+2m_ 0 \lambda X^ 3+\lambda^ 2 X=0\) of this type of singularity given by \textit{M. Golubitsky} and \textit{D. Schaeffer} [Singularities and groups in bifurcation theory, Vol. 1, New York (1985; Zbl 0607.35004)]. An excellent agreement between these bifurcation theoretic unfolding and numerical continuation (of periodic solution) results (using AUTO) is found.