Two results on stable rapidly oscillating periodic solutions of delay differential equations

Abstract

In 1999 Ivanov and Losson [A.F. Ivanov and J. Losson, Stable rapidly oscillating solutions in delay differential equations with negative feedback, Differ. Int. Eqns 12 (1999), pp. 811–832] presented a computer assisted proof that a particular delay differential equation (with negative feedback) admits a stable rapidly oscillating periodic solution (ROPS). In this article the delay equation of Ivanov and Losson is embedded in a five-parametric class of differential equations. Conditions on the parameters are given such that the delay equation admits a stable ROPS. Moreover, it is shown that for odd n > 1 the delay equation admits a stable ROPS with n humps per unit time if the parameters satisfy some explicitly given conditions. The delay equation of Ivanov and Losson satisfies all conditions on the five parameters. This gives an analytic proof and a considerable generalization of the result of Ivanov and Losson. The conditions on the parameters are believed to be sharp in a certain sense. The second result proves part of a conjecture in Stoffer [D. Stoffer, Delay equations with rapidly oscillating stable periodic solutions, J. Dyn. Differ. Eqns 20(1) (2008), pp. 201–238]. For a class of stiff delay differential equations with piecewise constant nonlinearity (positive or negative feedback) and for every n the following holds: if the stiffness parameter is sufficiently large then there are 2a(n) essentially different stable ROPSs with n humps per time unit. a(n) is the number of essentially different binary n-stage shift register sequences.