Partial linearization for planar nonautonomous differential equations (Q2254051)

This interesting paper contains a partial linearization result for Carathéodory differential equations in the plane. The linear part is supposed to have one center- and one hyperbolic direction. More precisely, near a reference solution \(\mu:{\mathbb R}\to{\mathbb R}^2\) the planar differential equation \(\dot x=f(t,x)\) is shown to be \(C^k\)-equivalent to the simplified system \[ \dot y_1=a_1(t)y_1+p(t,y_1),\quad \dot y_2=a_2(t)y_2+q(t,y_1)y_2, \] provided an appropriate gap condition is fulfilled in terms of the Sacker-Sell spectrum for the variational equation \(\dot y=D_2f(t,\mu(t))y\). The proof is based on a flattening of the unstable manifold combined with a normal form reduction. As an application the authors consider a Duffing-van der Pol oscillator, whose linear part is perturbed by a bounded measurable function.