Methods for studying stability of systems with linear delay (Q5932626)

The article is devoted to study the stability of systems with delay linear in time of the form \[ \begin{aligned} &\frac{dx(t)}{dt} = e^t\left(A(t)x(t) + \sum_{k=1}^mB_k(t)x(t-\tau_k) + H\bigl(t,x(t),x_{\tau}(t)\bigr)\right),\quad t \geq t_0, \\ &x(s_0) = \phi(s_0),\quad t_0 - \tau_m\leq s_0\leq t_0. \end{aligned} \] Here, \(A(t)\), \(B_k(t)\) are bounded sufficiently smooth \(n\times n\)-matrices; \(H\bigl(t,x(t),x_{\tau}(t)\bigr)\) is a nonlinear vector-valued function; \(x(t)\) is an \(n\)-dimensional vector-valued function of \(t\). In the first part of the article, the author considers conditions under which the homogeneous system possesses asymptotic stability. To this end, a rigorous analysis is presented of the conditions which guarantee this property. The proof is based on studying a degenerate difference system of the form \[ z(t) = - \sum_{k = 1}^mA^{-1}(t)B_k(t)z(t - \tau_k),\quad z(t) = \varphi(s), \quad t_0 - \tau_m\leq s \leq t_0. \] In the second part of the article, the author formulates a perturbed problem for the inhomogeneous system and, under a suitable assumption on the data of the problem, he proves a priori estimates for the solutions to the perturbed system and, therefore, he obtains a stability result for the original system.