By applying a singular perturbation approach, canard limit cycles exhibited by a general family of singularly perturbed planar piecewise linear (PWL) differential systems are analyzed. The performed study involves both hyperbolic and non-hyperbolic canard limit cycles appearing after both a supercritical and a subcritical Hopf bifurcation.
The obtained results are completely comparable with those obtained for smooth vector fields. In some sense, the manuscript can be understood as an extension towards the PWL framework of the results obtained for smooth systems by Krupa and Szmolyan [18]. In addition, some novel slow-fast behaviors are obtained. In particular, in the supercritical case, and under suitable conditions, it is proved that the limit cycles are organized along a curve exhibiting two folds. Each of these folds corresponds to a saddle-node bifurcation of canard limit cycles, one involving headless canard cycles, whereas the other involving canard cycles with head. This configuration allows the coexistence of three canard limit cycles.
We show that a nonlinear, piecewise-smooth, planar dynamical system can exhibit canard phenomena. Canard solutions and explosion in nonlinear, piecewise-smooth systems can be qualitatively more similar to the phenomena in smooth systems than piecewise-linear systems, since the nonlinearity allows for canards to transition from small cycles to canards ``with heads." The canards are born of a bifurcation that occurs as the slow-nullcline coincides with the splitting manifold. However, there are conditions under which this bifurcation leads to a phenomenon called super-explosion, the instantaneou…
Classical canard explosion results in smooth systems require the vector field to be at least $C^3$, since canard cycles are created as the result of a Hopf bifurcation. The work on canards in nonsmooth, planar systems is recent and has thus far been restricted to piecewise-linear or piecewise-smooth Van der Pol systems, where an extremum of the critical manifold arises from the nonsmoothness. In both of these cases, a canard (or canard-like) explosion is created through a nonsmooth bifurcation as the slow nullcline passes through a corner of the critical manifold. Additionally, it is possible …
Canard-induced phenomena have been extensively studied in the last three decades, both from the mathematical and from the application viewpoints. Canards in slow-fast systems with (at least) two slow variables, especially near folded-node singularities, give an essential generating mechanism for Mixed-Mode oscillations (MMOs) in the framework of smooth multiple timescale systems. There is a wealth of literature on such slow-fast dynamical systems and many models displaying canard-induced MMOs, in particular in neuroscience. In parallel, since the late 1990s several papers have shown that the c…
In this paper we use the blow up method of Dumortier and Roussarie \cite{dumortier_1991,dumortier_1993,dumortier_1996}, in the formulation due to Krupa and Szmolyan \cite{krupa_extending_2001}, to study the regularization of singularities of piecewise smooth dynamical systems \cite{filippov1988differential} in $\mathbb R^3$. Using the regularization method of Sotomayor and Teixeira \cite{Sotomayor96}, first we demonstrate the power of our approach by considering the case of a fold line. We quickly recover a main result of Bonet and Seara \cite{reves_regularization_2014} in a simple manner. The…
In multiple time-scale (singularly perturbed) dynamical systems, canards are counterintuitive solutions that evolve along both attracting and repelling invariant manifolds. In two dimensions, canards result in periodic oscillations whose amplitude and period grow in a highly nonlinear way: they are slowly varying with respect to a control parameter, except for an exponentially small range of values where they grow extremely rapidly. This sudden growth, called a canard explosion, has been encountered in many applications ranging from chemistry to neuronal dynamics, aerospace engineering and eco…
In this paper, we extend the slow divergence-integral from slow-fast systems, due to De Maesschalck, Dumortier and Roussarie, to smooth systems that limit onto piecewise smooth ones as $ε\rightarrow 0$. In slow-fast systems, the slow divergence-integral is an integral of the divergence along a canard cycle with respect to the slow time and it has proven very useful in obtaining good lower and upper bounds of limit cycles in planar polynomial systems. In this paper, our slow divergence-integral is based upon integration along a generalized canard cycle for a piecewise smooth two-fold bifurcatio…
We use blowup to study the regularization of codimension one two-fold singularities in planar piecewise smooth (PWS) dynamical systems. We focus on singular canards, pseudo-equlibria and limit cycles that can occur in the PWS system. Using the regularization of Sotomayor and Teixeira \cite{Sotomayor96}, we show rigorously how singular canards can persist and how the bifurcation of pseudo-equilibria is related to bifurcations of equilibria in the regularized system. We also show that PWS limit cycles are connected to Hopf bifurcations of the regularization. In addition, we show how regularizati…
We describe a transition from bursting to rapid spiking in a reduced mathematical model of a cerebellar Purkinje cell. We perform a slow-fast analysis of the system and find that -- after a saddle node bifurcation of limit cycles -- the full model dynamics follow temporarily a repelling branch of limit cycles. We propose that the system exhibits a dynamical phenomenon new to realistic, biophysical applications: torus canards.
The folded node is a singularity associated with loss of normal hyperbolicity in systems where mixtures of slow and fast timescales arise due to singular perturbations. Canards are special solutions that reveal a counteractive feature of the local dynamics, namely trajectories that flow from attractive regions of space into repulsive regions. An alternative way to model switches between timescales is using piecewise-smooth differential equations. There is presently no adequate theory or method for relating slow-fast and piecewise-smooth models. Here we derive the analogous piecewise-smooth sys…
We study canard solutions of the forced van der Pol (fvdP) equation in the relaxation limit for low-, intermediate-, and high-frequency periodic forcing. A central numerical observation is that there are two branches of canards in parameter space which extend across all positive forcing frequencies. For low-frequency forcing, we demonstrate the existence of primary maximal canards induced by folded saddle-nodes of type I, and establish explicit formulas for the parameter values at which the primary maximal canards and their folds exist. We then turn to the intermediate- and high-frequency forc…
We analyze a piecewise-linear FitzHugh-Nagumo model. The system exhibits a canard near which both small amplitude and large amplitude periodic orbits exist. The addition of small noise induces mixed-mode oscillations (MMOs) in the vicinity of the canard point. We determine the effect of each model parameter on the stochastically driven MMOs. In particular we show that any parameter variation (such as a modification of the piecewise-linear function in the model) that leaves the ratio of noise amplitude to time-scale separation unchanged typically has little effect on the width of the interval o…
We study a class of planar integrate and fire (IF) models called adaptive integrate and fire (AIF) models, which possesses an adaptation variable on top of membrane potential, and whose subthreshold dynamics is piecewise linear (PWL). These AIF models therefore have two reset conditions, which enable bursting dynamics to emerge for suitable parameter values. Such models can be thought of as hybrid dynamical systems. We consider a particular slow dynamics within AIF models and prove the existence of bursting cycles with $N$ resets, for any integer $N$. Furthermore, we study the transition betwe…
For flows, the singular cycles connecting saddle periodic orbit and saddle equilibrium can poten- tially result in the so-called singular horseshoe, which means the existence of a non-uniformly hyperbolic chaotic invariant set. However, it is very hard to find a specific dynamical system that exhibits such singular cycles in general. In this paper, the existence of the singular cycles involved in saddle periodic orbits is studied by two types of piecewise affine systems: one is the piecewise affine system having an admissible saddle point with only real eigenvalues and an admissible saddle per…
In this paper, we study limit cycle bifurcations for a class of general near-Hamiltonian systems near a heteroclinic loop with an elementary saddle and a nilpotent saddle. Firstly, we consider the behaviors of the unperturbed system, providing the phase portraits of the system and the necessary conditions for the appearance of a heteroclinic loop with an elementary saddle and a nilpotent saddle by using the relevant qualitative theory. Then, with consideration of the expression of the first-order Melnikov function, we derive its expansion near the heteroclinic loop by employing some techniques…
The limiting slow dynamics of slow-fast, piecewise-linear, continuous systems of ODEs occurs on critical manifolds that are piecewise-linear. At points of non-differentiability, such manifolds are not normally hyperbolic and so the fundamental results of geometric singular perturbation theory do not apply. In this paper it is shown that if the critical manifold is globally stable then the system is forward invariant in a neighbourhood of the critical manifold. It follows that in this neighbourhood the dynamics is given by a regular perturbation of the dynamics on the critical manifold and so d…
In this paper, we study the number of limit cycles that can bifurcate from a periodic annulus in discontinuous planar piecewise linear Hamiltonian differential system with three zones separated by two parallel straight lines, such that the linear differential systems that define the piecewise one have a center and two saddles. That is, the linear differential system in the region between the two parallel lines (i.e. the central subsystem) has a center and the others subsystems have saddles. We prove that if the central subsystem has a real or a boundary center, then we have at least six limit …
In this article we study the existence of limit cycles in families of piecewise smooth differential equations having the unit circle as discontinuity region. We consider families presenting singularities of center or saddle type, visible or invisible, as well as the case without singularities. We establish an upper bound for the number of limit cycles and give examples showing that the maximum number of limit cycles can be reached. We also discuss the existence of homoclinic cycles for such differential equations in the saddle-center case.
In this paper, we study the existence of limit cycles in continuous and discontinuous planar piecewise linear Hamiltonian differential systems with two or three zones separated by straight lines and such that the linear systems that define the piecewise one have isolated singular points, i.e. centers or saddles. In this case, we show that if the planar piecewise linear Hamiltonian differential system is either continuous or discontinuous with two zones, then it has no limit cycles. Now, if the planar piecewise linear Hamiltonian differential system is discontinuous with three zones, then it ha…
In this paper we study conditions for the existence of the close orbit in piecewise continuous Matsumoto-Chua System. Our interest are in a pseudo saddle-node bifurcation in the first return application. In this bifurcation the close orbit is releted to stable fixed point.
We establish an equivalence between infinitely many asymptotically stable periodic solutions and subsumed homoclinic connections for $N$-dimensional piecewise-linear continuous maps. These features arise as a codimension-three phenomenon. The periodic solutions are single-round: they each involve one excursion away from a central saddle-type periodic solution. The homoclinic connection is subsumed in the sense that one branch of the unstable manifold of the saddle solution is contained entirely within its stable manifold. The results are proved by using exact expressions for the periodic solut…
This paper presents results concerning bifurcations of 2D piecewise-smooth dynamical systems governed by vector fields. Generic three-parameter families of a class of Non-Smooth Vector Fields are studied and the bifurcation diagrams are exhibited. Our main results describe the unfolding of the so called Resonant $Fold-Saddle$ singularity.
This paper presents results concerning bifurcations of 2D piecewise-smooth vector fields. In particular, the generic unfoldings of codimension three fold-addle singularities of Filippov systems, where a boundary-saddle and a fold coincide, are considered and the bifurcation diagrams exhibited.
This paper presents results concerning bifurcations of 2D piecewise-smooth dynamical systems governed by vector fields. Generic three parameter families of a class of Non-Smooth Vector Fields are studied and its bifurcation diagrams are exhibited. Our main result describes the unfolding of the so called Fold-Saddle singularity.
Models such as those involving abrupt changes in the Earth's reflectivity due to ice melt and formation often use nonlinear terms (e.g., hyperbolic tangent) to model the transition between two states. For various reasons, these models are often approximated by "simplified" discontinuous piecewise-linear systems that are obtained by letting the length of the transition region limit to zero. The smooth versions of these models may exhibit equilibrium solutions that are destroyed as parameter changes transition the models from smooth to nonsmooth. Using one such model as motivation, we explore th…
In this paper, we study the number of limit cycles that can bifurcating from a periodic annulus in discontinuous planar piecewise linear Hamiltonian differential system with three zones separated by two parallel straight lines. We prove that if the central subsystem, i.e. the system defined between the two parallel lines, has a real center and the others subsystems have centers or saddles, then we have at least three limit cycles that appear after perturbations of periodic annulus. For this, we study the number of zeros of a Melnikov function for piecewise Hamiltonian system and present a norm…
Mode-locking regions (resonance tongues) formed by border-collision bifurcations of piecewise-smooth, continuous maps commonly exhibit a distinctive sausage-like geometry with pinch points called "shrinking points". In this paper we extend our unfolding of the piecewise-linear case [{\em Nonlinearity}, 22(5):1123-1144, 2009] to show how shrinking points are destroyed by nonlinearity. We obtain a codimension-three unfolding of this shrinking point bifurcation for $N$-dimensional maps. We show that the destruction of the shrinking points generically occurs by the creation of a curve of saddle-no…
The Bogdanov-Takens system has at most one limit cycle and, in the parameter space, it exists between a Hopf and a saddle-loop bifurcation curves. The aim of this paper is to prove the Perko's conjectures about some analytic properties of the saddle-loop bifurcation curve. Moreover, we provide sharp piecewise algebraic upper and lower bounds for this curve.
The planar visible fold is a simple singularity in piecewise smooth systems. In this paper, we consider singularly perturbed systems that limit to this piecewise smooth bifurcation as the singular perturbation parameter $ε\rightarrow 0$. Alternatively, these singularly perturbed systems can be thought of as regularizations of their piecewise counterparts. The main contribution of the paper is to demonstrate the use of consecutive blowup transformations in this setting, allowing us to obtain detailed information about a transition map near the fold under very general assumptions. We apply this …
The collection of all non-degenerate, continuous, two-piece, piecewise-linear maps on $\mathbb{R}^2$ can be reduced to a four-parameter family known as the two-dimensional border-collision normal form. We prove that throughout an open region of parameter space this family has an attractor satisfying Devaney's definition of chaos. This strengthens existing results on the robustness of chaos in piecewise-linear maps. We further show that the stable manifold of a saddle fixed point, despite being a one-dimensional object, densely fills an open region containing the attractor. Finally we identify …
Rhythmic behaviors in neural systems often combine features of limit cycle dynamics (stability and periodicity) with features of near heteroclinic or near homoclinic cycle dynamics (extended dwell times in localized regions of phase space). Proximity of a limit cycle to one or more saddle equilibria can have a profound effect on the timing of trajectory components and response to both fast and slow perturbations, providing a possible mechanism for adaptive control of rhythmic motions. Reyn showed that for a planar dynamical system with a stable heteroclinic cycle (or separatrix polygon), small…
From two-dimensional continuous maps to one-dimensional discontinuous maps: a novel reduction explaining complex bifurcation structures in piecewise-linear families of maps
