On the existence and stabilization of an upper unstable limit cycle of the damped forced pendulum (Q2297144)

The authors study the periodically forced damped pendulum \[ x''=-\sin x-0.1x'+\cos t. \] This equation has been first investigated by \textit{J. H. Hubbard} [Am. Math. Mon. 106, No. 8, 741--758 (1999; Zbl 0989.70014)]. \textit{B. Bánhelyi} et al. proved in [SIAM J. Appl. Dyn. Syst. 7, No. 3, 843--867 (2008; Zbl 1160.70010)] that the system is chaotic. The reason for this phenomenon is the emergence of an unstable \(2\pi\)-periodic motion around the upper equilibrium position of the pendulum. In this paper, the authors prove the existence of the unstable periodic solution using interval methods (see [\textit{T. Csendes} et al., J. Glob. Optim. 35, No. 1, 145--160 (2006; Zbl 1103.90076)]). Moreover, they construct a vibration of the suspension point in the plain of the motion of the pendulum which stabilizes this unstable solution.