An iterative method for the canard explosion in general planar systems

The canard explosion is the change of amplitude and period of a limit cycle born in a Hopf bifurcation in a very narrow parameter interval. The phenomenon is well understood in singular perturbation problems where a small parameter controls the slow/fast dynamics. However, canard explosions are also observed in systems where no such parameter is present. Here we show how the iterative method of Roussel and Fraser, devised to construct regular slow manifolds, can be used to determine a canard point in a general planar system of nonlinear ODEs. We demonstrate the method on the van der Pol equation, showing that the asymptotics of the method is correct, and on a templator model for a self-replicating system.Comment: Paper presented at the 9th AIMS Conference on Dynamical Systems, Differential Equations and Applications, Orlando, Florida, USA July 1 - 5, 201

An iterative method for the approximation of fibers in slow-fast systems

In this paper we extend a method for iteratively improving slow manifolds so that it also can be used to approximate the fiber directions. The extended method is applied to general finite dimensional real analytic systems where we obtain exponential estimates of the tangent spaces to the fibers. The method is demonstrated on the Michaelis-Menten-Henri model and the Lindemann mechanism. The latter example also serves to demonstrate the method on a slow-fast system in non-standard slow-fast form. Finally, we extend the method further so that it also approximates the curvature of the fibers.Comment: To appear in SIAD

Canards in stiction: on solutions of a friction oscillator by regularization

We study the solutions of a friction oscillator subject to stiction. This discontinuous model is non-Filippov, and the concept of Filippov solution cannot be used. Furthermore some Carath\'eodory solutions are unphysical. Therefore we introduce the concept of stiction solutions: these are the Carath\'eodory solutions that are physically relevant, i.e. the ones that follow the stiction law. However, we find that some of the stiction solutions are forward non-unique in subregions of the slip onset. We call these solutions singular, in contrast to the regular stiction solutions that are forward unique. In order to further the understanding of the non-unique dynamics, we introduce a regularization of the model. This gives a singularly perturbed problem that captures the main features of the original discontinuous problem. We identify a repelling slow manifold that separates the forward slipping to forward sticking solutions, leading to a high sensitivity to the initial conditions. On this slow manifold we find canard trajectories, that have the physical interpretation of delaying the slip onset. We show with numerics that the regularized problem has a family of periodic orbits interacting with the canards. We observe that this family has a saddle stability and that it connects, in the rigid body limit, the two regular, slip-stick branches of the discontinuous problem, that were otherwise disconnected.Comment: Submitted to: SIADS. 28 pages, 12 figure