Periodic orbits for perturbations of piecewise linear systems (Q627692)

The analysis of piecewise linear systems is growing daily because they realistically describe some physical phenomena, such as the behavior of some mechanical and electronic circuits. By means of piecewise linear systems, some basic bifurcations are easy to understand. These systems present a very complex behavior, similar to nonlinear systems, such as limit cycles, homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits, strange attractors, etc. In the present paper, the existence of periodic orbits in a class of three-dimensional piecewise linear systems is studied. The authors describe the dynamical behavior of a non-generic piecewise linear system which has two equilibria and one two-dimensional invariant manifold foliated by periodic orbits. The aim of this work is to study the periodic orbits of the continuum that persist under a piecewise linear perturbation of the system. In order to analyze this situation, a real function of real variables is constructed, whose zeros are related to the limit cycles that remain after the perturbation. By using this function, some results on the existence and stability of limit cycles in the perturbed system, as well as results of bifurcations of limit cycles are given. The techniques presented are similar to the Melnikov theory for smooth systems and the method of averaging.