Adapting to a Changing Environment: Non-obvious Thresholds in Multi-Scale Systems

DOI10.1098/RSPA.2014.0226arXiv1401.5268WikidataQ51027834 ScholiaQ51027834MaRDI QIDQ6248317FDOQ6248317

Publication date: 21 January 2014

Abstract: Many natural and technological systems fail to adapt to changing external conditions and move to a different state if the conditions vary too fast. Such "non-adiabatic" processes are ubiquitous, but little understood. We identify these processes with a new nonlinear phenomenon---an intricate threshold where a forced system fails to adiabatically follow a changing stable state. In systems with multiple time-scales such thresholds are generic, but non-obvious, meaning they cannot be captured by traditional stability theory. Rather, the phenomenon can be analysed using concepts from modern singular perturbation theory: folded singularities and canard trajectories, including composite canards. Thus, non-obvious thresholds should explain the failure to adapt to a changing environment in a wide range of multi-scale systems including: tipping points in the climate system, regime shifts in ecosystems, excitability in nerve cells, adaptation failure in regulatory genes, and adiabatic switching in technology.

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Nonautonomous smooth dynamical systems (37C60) Canard solutions to ordinary differential equations (34E17) Forced motions for nonlinear problems in mechanics (70K40) Bifurcations and instability for nonlinear problems in mechanics (70K50) Systems with slow and fast motions for nonlinear problems in mechanics (70K70)

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