Computing the solutions of the van der Pol equation to arbitrary precision

TL;DR

This paper extends the Taylor method with Padé approximants for arbitrary precision numerical solutions of ODEs, enabling highly accurate calculations of the van der Pol equation's limit cycle and related asymptotic behaviors.

Contribution

It introduces a variable stepsize and order Taylor-Padé method for arbitrary precision ODE solutions, applied to the van der Pol equation to achieve unprecedented accuracy.

Findings

Calculated van der Pol limit cycle with unprecedented precision

Validated asymptotic behaviors of period, amplitude, and Lyapunov exponent

Derived new formulas for the asymptotic behavior of fast component and maximum velocity

Abstract

We describe an extension of the Taylor method for the numerical solution of ODEs that uses Pad\'e approximants to obtain extremely precise numerical results. The accuracy of the results is essentially limited only by the computer time and memory, provided that one works in arbitrary precision. In this method the stepsize is adjusted to achieve the desired accuracy (variable stepsize), while the order of the Taylor expansion can be either fixed or changed at each iteration (variable order). As an application, we have calculated the periodic solutions (limit cycle) of the van der Pol equation with an unprecedented accuracy for a large set of couplings (well beyond the values currently found in the literature) and we have used these numerical results to validate the asymptotic behavior of the period, of the amplitude and of the Lyapunov exponent reported in the literature. We have also used the numerical results to infer the formulas for the asymptotic behavior of the fast component of the period and of the maximum velocity, which have never been calculated before.