On the periodic orbit bifurcating from a Hopf bifurcation in systems with two slow and one fast variables

The Hopf bifurcation in slow-fast systems with two slow variables and one fast variable has been studied recently, mainly from a numerical point of view. Our goal is to provide an analytic proof of the existence of the zero Hopf bifurcation exhibited for such systems, and to characterize the stability or instability of the periodic orbit which borns in such zero Hopf bifurcation. Our proofs use the averaging theory.The first and third authors are partially supported by a MICINN grant number MTM2011-22877 and by an AGAUR grant number 2009SGR 381. The second author is partially supported by a MICINN/FEDER grant number MTM2008- 03437, by an AGAUR grant number 2009SGR 410 and by ICREA Academia

Zero-Hopf bifurcation in the FitzHugh-Nagumo system

We characterize the values of the parameters for which a zero--Hopf equilibrium point takes place at the singular points, namely, $O$ (the origin), $P_+$ and $P_-$ in the FitzHugh-Nagumo system. Thus we find two $2$--parameter families of the FitzHugh-Nagumo system for which the equilibrium point at the origin is a zero-Hopf equilibrium. For these two families we prove the existence of a periodic orbit bifurcating from the zero--Hopf equilibrium point $O$. We prove that exist three $2$--parameter families of the FitzHugh-Nagumo system for which the equilibrium point at $P_+$ and $P_-$ is a zero-Hopf equilibrium point. For one of these families we prove the existence of $1$, or $2$, or $3$ periodic orbits borning at $P_+$ and $P_-$

Multimodal oscillations in systems with strong contraction

One- and two-parameter families of flows in $R^3$ near an Andronov-Hopf bifurcation (AHB) are investigated in this work. We identify conditions on the global vector field, which yield a rich family of multimodal orbits passing close to a weakly unstable saddle-focus and perform a detailed asymptotic analysis of the trajectories in the vicinity of the saddle-focus. Our analysis covers both cases of sub- and supercritical AHB. For the supercritical case, we find that the periodic orbits born from the AHB are bimodal when viewed in the frame of coordinates generated by the linearization about the bifurcating equilibrium. If the AHB is subcritical, it is accompanied by the appearance of multimodal orbits, which consist of long series of nearly harmonic oscillations separated by large amplitude spikes. We analyze the dependence of the interspike intervals (which can be extremely long) on the control parameters. In particular, we show that the interspike intervals grow logarithmically as the boundary between regions of sub- and supercritical AHB is approached in the parameter space. We also identify a window of complex and possibly chaotic oscillations near the boundary between the regions of sub- and supercritical AHB and explain the mechanism generating these oscillations. This work is motivated by the numerical results for a finite-dimensional approximation of a free boundary problem modeling solid fuel combustion

On the nature of the torus in the complex Lorenz equations.

The complex Lorenz equations are a nonlinear fifth-order set of physically derived differential equations which exhibit an exact analytic limit cycle which subsequently bifurcates to a torus. In this paper we build upon previously derived results to examine a connection between this torus at high and low r1 bifurcation parameter) and between zero and nonzero r2(complexity parameter); in so doing, we are able to gain insight on the effect of the rotational invariance of the system, and on how extra weak dispersion (r2 ≠ 0) affects the chaotic behavior of the real Lorenz system (which describes a weakly dissipative, dispersive instability)