Soledad Fernández-García

Structural stability of the two-fold singularity

At a two-fold singularity, the velocity vector of a flow switches discontinuously across a codimension one switching manifold, between two directions that both lie tangent to the manifold. Particularly intricate dynamics arises when the local flow curves toward the switching manifold from both sides, a case referred to as the Teixeira singularity. The flow locally performs two different actions: it winds around the singularity by crossing repeatedly through, and passes through the singularity by sliding along, the switching manifold. The case when the number of rotations around the singularity is infinite has been analyzed in detail. Here we study the case when the flow makes a finite, but previously unknown, number of rotations around the singularity between incidents of sliding. We show that the solution is remarkably simple: the maximum and minimum numbers of rotations made anywhere in the flow differ only by one and increase incrementally with a single parameter---the angular jump in the flow directio...

A Multiple Time Scale Coupling of Piecewise Linear Oscillators. Application to a Neuroendocrine System

We analyze a four-dimensional slow-fast piecewise linear system consisting of two coupled McKean caricatures of the FitzHugh--Nagumo system. Each oscillator is a continuous slow-fast piecewise linear system with three zones of linearity. The coupling is one-way, that is, one subsystem evolves independently and is forcing the other subsystem. In contrast to the original FitzHugh--Nagumo system, we consider a negative slope of the linear nullcline in both the forcing and the forced system. In the forcing system, this lets us, by just changing one parameter, pass from a system having one equilibrium and a relaxation cycle to a system with three equilibria keeping the relaxation cycle. Thus, we can easily control the changes in the oscillation frequency of the forced system. The case with three equilibria and a linear slow nullcline is a new configuration of the McKean caricature, where the existence of the relaxation cycle was not studied previously. We also consider a negative slope of the

Noose bifurcation and crossing tangency in reversible piecewise linear systems

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Canard solutions in planar piecewise linear systems with three zones

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Canards in a minimal piecewise-linear square-wave burster

The structure of the periodic orbits analysed in this paper was first reported in the Michelson system by Kent and Elgin (1991 Nonlinearity 4 1045–61), who gave it the name noose bifurcation. Recently, it has been found in a piecewise linear system with two linearity zones separated by a plane, which is called the separation plane. In this system, the orbits that take part in the noose bifurcation have two and four points of intersection with the separation plane, and they are arranged in two curves that are connected by a point where the periodic orbit has a crossing tangency with the separation plane. In this work, we analytically prove the local existence of the curve of periodic orbits with four intersections that emerges from the point corresponding to the crossing tangency. Moreover, we add a numerical study of the stability and bifurcations of the periodic orbits involved in the noose curve for the piecewise linear system and check that they exhibit the same configuration as that of the Michelson system.

Melnikov theory for a class of planar hybrid systems

ABSTRACT In this work, we analyze the existence and stability of canard solutions in a class of planar piecewise linear systems with three zones, using a singular perturbation theory approach. To this aim, we follow the analysis of the classical canard phenomenon in smooth planar slow–fast systems and adapt it to the piecewise-linear framework. We first prove the existence of an intersection between repelling and attracting slow manifolds, which defines a maximal canard, in a non-generic system of the class having a continuum of periodic orbits. Then, we perturb this situation and we prove the persistence of the maximal canard solution, as well as the existence of a family of canard limit cycles in this class of systems. Similarities and differences between the piecewise linear case and the smooth one are highlighted.

Saddle–node bifurcation of invariant cones in 3D piecewise linear systems ☆

We construct a piecewise-linear (PWL) approximation of the Hindmarsh-Rose (HR) neuron model that is minimal, in the sense that the vector field has the least number of linearity zones, in order to reproduce all the dynamics present in the original HR model with classical parameter values. This includes square-wave bursting and also special trajectories called canards, which possess long repelling segments and organise the transitions between stable bursting patterns with n and n + 1 spikes, also referred to as spike-adding canard explosions. We propose a first approximation of the smooth HR model, using a continuous PWL system, and show that its fast subsystem cannot possess a homoclinic bifurcation, which is necessary to obtain proper square-wave bursting. We then relax the assumption of continuity of the vector field across all zones, and we show that we can obtain a homoclinic bifurcation in the fast subsystem. We use the recently developed canard theory for PWL systems in order to reproduce the spike-adding canard explosion feature of the HR model as studied, e.g., in Desroches et al., Chaos 23(4), 046106 (2013).