Some results on the stability and bifurcation of a distributed delay network (Q2800655)

The manuscript investigates the stability of the zero steady state for three coupled delay differential equations NEWLINE\[NEWLINE \dot{x}_{j}(t)=-x_{j}(t)+\alpha\int_{-\infty}^{t}k(t-s)f(x_{j}(s))ds+\beta\left[f(x_{j-1}(t-\tau_{n}))+f(x_{j+1}(t-\tau_{n}))\right], NEWLINE\]NEWLINE where \(k(s)=re^{-rs}\) is the kernel of the distributed delay, \(f(x)=\tanh(x)\), \(j\) is considered modulo 3. The system contains both distributed and discrete delay \(\tau_{n}\). Due the shape of the kernel the characteristic quasipolynomial is similar to the case of a discrete delay. The main result of the paper are several formal necessary conditions for the local stability and Hopf bifurcations, that are based on the analysis of the characteristic equation.