A remark on geometric desingularization of a non-hyperbolic point using hyperbolic space

Abstract

A steady state (or equilibrium point) of a dynamical system is hyperbolic if the Jacobian at the steady state has no eigenvalues with zero real parts. In this case, the linearized system does qualitatively capture the dynamics in a small neighborhood of the hyperbolic steady state. However, one is often forced to consider non-hyperbolic steady states, for example in the context of bifurcation theory. A geometric technique to desingularize non-hyperbolic points is the blow-up method. The classical case of the method is motivated by desingularization techniques arising in algebraic geometry. The idea is to blow up the steady state to a sphere or a cylinder. In the blown-up space, one is then often able to gain additional hyperbolicity at steady states. The method has also turned out to be a key tool to desingularize multiple time scale dynamical systems with singularities. In this paper, we discuss an explicit example of the blow-up method where we replace the sphere in the blow-up by hyperbolic space. It is shown that the calculations work in the hyperbolic space case as for the spherical case. This approach may be even slightly more convenient if one wants to work with directional charts. Hence, it is demonstrated that the sphere should be viewed as an auxiliary object in the blow-up construction. Other smooth manifolds are also natural candidates to be inserted at steady states. Furthermore, we conjecture several problems where replacing the sphere could be particularly useful, i.e., in the context of singularities of geometric flows, for avoiding compactification, and generating 'interior' steady states.