Families of periodic orbits: closed 1-forms and global continuability (Q2662483)

In this article, the problem of the existence of periodic orbits of a \(C^1\) autonomous ordinary differential equation with one parameter on a smooth manifold \(Q\) is tackled. The authors define the notion of \((\eta,\ell)\)-global continuability and provide sufficient, rather stringent conditions (involving Floquet multipliers and existence results) under which a periodic orbit of a differentiable vector field is \((\eta,\ell)\)-global continuable. The term \(\eta\) denotes a \(C^1\) closed 1-form on an open subset of the product \(Q\times \mathbb{R},\) and \(\ell\) is the absolute value of the integral of the pullback of the form \(\eta\) under the inclusion \(Q\hookrightarrow Q\times\mathbb{R}.\) Then the authors prove the existence of global periodic orbits of the parameter-dependent family of equations, under nonstandard technical hypotheses, and visit the case of unfolding families of differentiable flows with a Hopf bifurcation as well. It is proved that when \(Q\) is oriented, the unfolding family of vector fields has a nonstationary periodic orbit contained in the complement of the boundary of a properly embedded, smooth, oriented, codimension-1 submanifold (global existence of periodic orbits following a Hopf bifurcation). The last section deals with the particular cases of the repressilator and the Sprott systems (which admit the symmetry \((x,y,z)\to(y,z,x)\)). The authors illustrate the previous results and study the equilibria of these differential equations via standard analytical techniques. To complement the exposition, an appendix on closed 1-forms is provided at the end of the article.