Harmonic-balance method in the self-oscillation problem (Q1061287)

Let f be a continuous (nonlinear) function and L,M polynomials of degrees \(\ell,m\) respectively, \(\ell >m\). Assume that L has no imaginary roots and the nonlinear equation \(L(p)x=M(p)f(x)\), \(p=d/dt\), has a periodic solution \(x_ 0(t)\) with a period \(T_ 0\) and \(x'_ 0(0)\neq 0\). In order to find \(x_ 0\) the authors take \(x_ n(t)=A_ 0+\sum^{n}_{k=1}A_ k\sin (k\omega t+\phi_ k),\) where all the coefficients are undetermined and then denote by \(P_ nf(x_ n(t))\) the sum of the first n harmonics in the Fourier series for \(f(x_ n(t))\). The undetermined coefficients can be chosen to satisfy the equation \(L(p)x_ n(t)=M(p)P_ nf(x_ n(t)).\) If \(\gamma\) (n) is the collection of all possible solutions \(x_ n\) and \(C^ k(0,T_ 0)\) the Banach space of all k-times continuously differentiable functions on \([0,T_ 0]\) with uniform convergence for all derivatives of order \(\leq k\), then \(\lim_{n\to \infty}\inf_{x_ n\in \gamma (n)}\| x_ n-x_ 0\|_{C^{\ell -m-1}(0,T_ 0)}=0.\)