Dynamics of two-cell systems with discrete delays (Q2363520)

The author studies a general coupled two-cell network with constant delays of the form \[ \dot{x}_{1}=f_{1}\left( x_{1}\left( t\right) ,x_{2}\left( t-\tau _{2}\right) \right) ,\qquad\dot{x}_{2}=f_{2}\left( x_{2}\left( t\right) ,x_{1}\left( t-\tau_{2}\right) \right) .\tag{1} \] It is assumed that \(f_{1}\) and \(f_{2}\) are analytic functions that vanish at the origin and \(\tau_{1},\) \(\tau_{2}\) are positive. Main results in the paper are formulated in terms of coefficients for \(f_{1}\) and \(f_{2}\) in Taylor expansions in powers of \(x_{1},\) \(x_{1\tau},\) and \(x_{2\tau}\) (\(x_{i\tau }\overset{\mathrm{def}}{=}x_{i}\left( t-\tau_{i}\right) \)). In Theorem 1, asymptotic stability of the trivial solution of (1) is established. Theorem 2 provides conditions for transcritical and pitchfork bifurcations. In Theorem 3, conditions for the Hopf bifurcation are given along with the characterization of stability properties of bifurcating periodic solutions and monotonicity of the period of bifurcating solutions. In the final part of the paper, two numerical examples are discussed and some conclusions are drawn. Since results are formulated in terms of the ``median delay'' \(\tau=\left( \tau_{1}+\tau_{2}\right) /2,\) the question of influence of single delays \(\tau_{1}\) or \(\tau_{2}\) on the dynamics of the system (1) remains open.