Appendix A. Phase Plane Analysis
Appendix A. Phase Plane Analysis We discuss here, only very briefly, general autonomous second-order ordinary differen- tial equations of the form dx dy = f (x, y), = g(x, y). (A.1) dt dt We present the basic results which are required in the main text. There are many books which discuss phase plane analysis in varying depth, such as Jordan and Smith (1999) and Guckenheimer and Holmes (1983). A good, short and practical exposition of the qualitative theory of ordinary differential equation systems, including phase plane tech- niques, is given by Odell (1980). Phase curves or phase trajectories of (A.1) are solu- tions of dx f (x, y) = . (A.2) dy g(x, y) Through any point (x0, y0) there is a unique curve except at singular points (xs, ys) where f (xs, ys) = g(xs, ys) = 0. Let x → x −xs, y → y − ys; then, (0, 0) is a singular point of the transformed equation. Thus, without loss of generality we now consider (A.2) to have a singular point at the origin; that is, f (x, y) = g(x, y) = 0 ⇒ x = 0, y = 0. (A.3) If f and g are analytic near (0, 0) we can expand f and g in a Taylor series and, retaining only the linear terms, we get dx ax + by ab f f = , A = = x y + (A.4) dy cx dy cd gx gy (0,0) which defines the matrix A and the constants a, b, c and d. The linear form is equivalent to the system 502 Appendix A.
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