On the stability of periodic orbits for differential systems in R^n

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Publication:950600



Abstract: We consider an autonomous differential system in mathbbRn with a periodic orbit and we give a new method for computing the characteristic multipliers associated to it. Our method works when the periodic orbit is given by the transversal intersection of n−1 codimension one hypersurfaces and is an alternative to the use of the first order variational equations. We apply it to study the stability of the periodic orbits in several examples, including a periodic solution found by Steklov studying the rigid body dynamics.


The authors consider a differential system \[ \frac{dx}{dt}=X(x), \] where \(X: U\subset \mathbb R^n\rightarrow \mathbb R^n\) is a \(C^1\) function and assume that the system exhibits a periodic orbit \(\Gamma=\{\gamma(t)\mid 0\leq t<T\}\). The goal of the paper is to compute the characteristic multipliers associated with the periodic orbit which determine its stability. The traditional approach is to use the first order variational equation \[ \frac{du}{dt}=DX(\gamma(t))u(t),\quad u(0)=\text{Id}. \] In this paper, the authors offer a new method, assuming that the periodic orbit is given by the transversal intersection of \(n-1\) codimension one hypersurfaces. The main theorem is Theorem 1.1. Let \(\Gamma=\{\gamma(t)\mid 0\leq t<T\}\) be a \(T\)-periodic solution. Consider a smooth function \(f: U\subset \mathbb R^n\rightarrow \mathbb R^{n-1}\) such that {\parindent=4mm \begin{itemize}\item[1.] \(\Gamma\) is contained in \(\bigcap_{i=1,\dots,n-1}\{f_i(x)=0\}\), \item[2.] the crossings of all manifolds \(\{f_i(x)=0\}\) are transversal over \(\Gamma\), \item[3.] there exists a \((n-1)\times (n-1)\) matrix \(k(x)\) satisfying \[ Df(x)X(x)=k(x)f(x). \] \end{itemize}} Let \(v(t)\) be the \((n-1)\times (n-1)\) fundamental matrix solution of \[ \frac{dv}{dt}=k(\gamma(t))v(t),\;v(0)=\text{Id}. \] Then the characteristic multipliers of \(\Gamma\) are the eigenvalues of \(v(T)\). The two-dimensional version of this theorem was given in [\textit{H. Giacomini} and \textit{M. Grau}, J. Differ. Equations 213, No.~2, 368--388 (2005; Zbl 1074.34034)]. The authors apply this method to three examples: Besides a \(4\)- and a \(3\)-dimensional polynomial problem, where the latter is related to Mathieu's equation, the authors study a \(6\)-dimensional system modeling the dynamics of a rigid body. \textit{V. A. Steklov} [``New particular solution of differential equations of motion of a heavy rigid body about a fixed point, Trudy Ob-va estest. 1, 1--3 (1899)] found a periodic orbit of this system, and due to three independent first integrals at least 4 characteristic multipliers are equal to one. In this paper, it is shown that the remaining two can be studied using a linear second order differential equation.











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