Attractors in coherent systems of differential equations (Q1016457)

This interesting and well-written article generalizes several results from the theory of cooperative dynamical systems to the significantly wider class of coherent systems which are defined by the property that all directed feedback loops are positive. In particular, attractors are discussed, which turn out to be very simple in many cases. For instance, if a coherent system on an open rectangle has a uniquely determined equilibrium, then this equilibrium is globally asymptotically stable. Moreover, it is shown that in a coherent system, every orbit is nowhere dense, and under some conditions on the topology of the phase space, the authors prove that there does not exist an attracting cycle. The studies in this article are motivated by a discussion of several biological models, and the appendix contains an interesting survey on the development of the concept of an attractor.