The effect of delayed feedback on the dynamics of an autocatalysis reaction–diffusion system

This paper deals with an arbitrary-order autocatalysis model with delayed feedback subject to Neumann boundary conditions. We perform a detailed analysis about the effect of the delayed feedback on the stability of the positive equilibrium of the system. By analyzing the distribution of eigenvalues, the existence of Hopf bifurcation is obtained. Then we derive an algorithm for determining the direction and stability of the bifurcation by computing the normal form on the center manifold. Moreover, some numerical simulations are given to illustrate the analytical results. Our studies show that the delayed feedback not only breaks the stability of the positive equilibrium of the system and results in the occurrence of Hopf bifurcation, but also breaks the stability of the spatial inhomogeneous periodic solutions. In addition, the delayed feedback also makes the unstable equilibrium become stable under certain conditions