Restrictions on the possible flows of scalar retarded functional differential equations in neighborhoods of singularities

Abstract

The paper addresses the occurrence of possible restrictions on the flows defined by scalar retarded functional differential equations (FDEs), locally around certain simple singularities, compared with the possible flows of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with the same singularities. It is found that for the Hopf and the Bogdanov-Takens singularities, there are no restrictions on the local flows defined by scalar FDEs, even when the nonlinearities depend on just one delayed value of the solutions. On the other hand, for the singularity associated with a zero and a conjugated pair of pure imaginary numbers as simple eigenvalues, it is shown that there occur restrictions on the flows defined by scalar FDEs with nonlinearities involving just one delay, as well as two delays satisfying a certain resonance condition. These restrictions are of geometric significance, since they amount to the impossibility of observing the homoclinic orbits that occur in arbitrarily small neighborhoods of the singularity for ODEs. Versal unfolfings for the considered singularities by FDEs and the possible restrictions on the associated flows are also studied.