Singularly Perturbed Boundary-Equilibrium Bifurcations

TL;DR

This paper classifies and analyzes singularly perturbed boundary-equilibrium bifurcations in planar systems, revealing detailed asymptotics and oscillation onset mechanisms as systems approach piecewise-smooth limits.

Contribution

It completes a classification of codimension-1 singularly perturbed BEBs in the plane, introducing a normal form and detailed bifurcation unfoldings using advanced geometric methods.

Findings

Derived a normal form for all 12 singularly perturbed BEBs

Provided detailed asymptotics for homoclinic connections

Proved existence and growth rate of oscillations near boundary-node bifurcations

Abstract

Boundary equilibria bifurcation (BEB) arises in piecewise-smooth systems when an equilibrium collides with a discontinuity set under parameter variation. Singularly perturbed BEB refers to a bifurcation arising in singular perturbation problems which limit as some $\epsilon \to 0$ to piecewise-smooth (PWS) systems which undergo a BEB. This work completes a classification for codimension-1 singularly perturbed BEB in the plane initiated by the present authors in [19], using a combination of tools from PWS theory, geometric singular perturbation theory (GSPT) and a method of geometric desingularization known as blow-up. After deriving a local normal form capable of generating all 12 singularly perturbed BEBs, we describe the unfolding in each case. Detailed quantitative results on saddle-node, Andronov-Hopf, homoclinic and codimension-2 Bogdanov-Takens bifurcations involved in the unfoldings and classification are presented. Each bifurcation is singular in the sense that it occurs within a domain which shrinks to zero as $\epsilon \to 0$ at a rate determined by the rate at which the system loses smoothness. Detailed asymptotics for a distinguished homoclinic connection which forms the boundary between two singularly perturbed BEBs in parameter space are also given. Finally, we describe the explosive onset of oscillations arising in the unfolding of a particular singularly perturbed boundary-node (BN) bifurcation. We prove the existence of the oscillations as perturbations of PWS cycles, and derive a growth rate which is polynomial in $\epsilon$ and dependent on the rate at which the system loses smoothness. For all the results presented herein, corresponding results for regularized PWS systems are obtained via the limit $\epsilon \to 0$.