Poincaré's problem in the class of almost periodic type functions (Q2349216)

The authors consider the following second-order ordinary differential equation \[ y''(t)+(a_{1}+r_{1}(t))y'(t)+(a_{0}+r_{0}(t))y(t)=0,\tag{1} \] where \(a_{i}\) are constants and \(r_{i}\) are complex-valued functions. The \(r_{i}\)'s are to be viewed as perturbations to a linear ordinary differential equation with constant coefficients, whose fundamental system of solutions \(y_{\pm}\) is given in terms of linear combinations of \(y_{\pm}(t)=\exp(\lambda_{\pm}t)\), where \(\lambda_{\pm}\) are the roots of the characteristic polynomial \(P(\lambda)=\lambda^{2}+a_{1}\lambda+a_{0}\) (provided the roots are distinct). In this unperturbed case, one has in particular \[ y_{\pm}'(t)/y_{\pm}(t)=\lambda_{\pm}.\tag{2} \] Poincaré's problem is to establish the existence of fundamental systems of solutions for the perturbed problem (1) within various classes for the perturbations \(r_{i}\)'s -- such as those vanishing at \(+\infty\) (\(C_{0}\)) or \(p\)-integrable ones (\(L^{p}\)) -- together with a quantitative estimate on the deviation from (2). For instance, a classical solution of Poincaré's problem due to Perron for \(r_{i}\in C_{0}\) is the existence of a fundamental system of solutions \(y_{\pm}\) which satisfy \(y_{\pm}'(t)/y_{\pm}(t)\to\lambda_{\pm}\) as \(t\to\infty\), where the characteristic roots \(\lambda_{\pm}\) are supposed to have distinct real parts. The main result of the present paper is the solution of Poincaré's problem for almost periodic \(r_{i}\). Specifically, the authors derive an almost explicit formula for the fundamental solutions \(y_{\pm}\), from which one obtains \[ y_{\pm}'(t)=(\lambda_{\pm}+z_{\pm}(t))y_{\pm}(t), \] where \(z_{\pm}\) satisfy a Riccati equation, are almost periodic and obey a quantitative growth estimate. Extensions to asymptotically almost periodic and \(p\)-almost periodic perturbations, leading to error functions \(z_{\pm}\) of the corresponding type, are also discussed. Finally, the theoretical results are illustrated by an example.