Andronov-Hopf bifurcation is the birth of a Limit Cycle from an equilibrium in dynamical systems generated by ODEs, when the equilibrium changes stability via a pair of purely imaginary Eigenvalues. The bifurcation can be supercritical or subcritical, resulting in stable or unstable (within an invariant two-dimensional manifold) Limit Cycle, respectively.

Supercritical Andronov-Hopf bifurcation in the plane.

Subcritical Andronov-Hopf bifurcation in the plane


Definition

Consider an autonomous system of Ordinary Differential Equations:

depending on a parameter where is smooth.

  • Suppose that for all sufficiently small the system has a family of equilibria
  • Further assume that its Jacobian Matrix has one pair of complex eigenvalues

that becomes purely imaginary when i.e., and Then, generically, as passes through the equilibrium changes stability and a unique limit cycle bifurcates from it. This bifurcation is characterized by a single bifurcation condition (has codimension one) and appears generically in one-parameter families of smooth ODEs.

Two-dimensional Case

To describe the bifurcation analytically, consider the system above with

If the following nondegeneracy conditions hold:

  • (AH.1) where is the first Lyapunov coefficient (see below);
  • (AH.2)

then this system is locally topologically equivalent near the equilibrium to the normal form

where and

  • If the normal form has an equilibrium at the origin, which is asymptotically stable for (weakly at ) and unstable for Moreover, there is a unique and stable circular limit cycle that exists for and has radius This is a supercritical Andronov-Hopf bifurcation (see Figure 1).
  • If the origin in the normal form is asymptotically stable for and unstable for (weakly at ), while a unique and unstable limit cycle exists for This is a subcritical Andronov-Hopf bifurcation (see Figure 2).
"\\usepackage{tikz}\n\\usetikzlibrary{arrows.meta}\n\\begin{document}\n\\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=1.2, >=Stealth, thick]\n\n Subcritical (sigma = +1)\n\\begin{scope}[xshift=6.5cm]\n \\node[font=\\bfseries\\small] at (0, 3.1) {Subcritical $(\\sigma=+1)$};\n \\draw[->] (-2.3,0) -- (2.6,0) node[right, font=\\small] {$\\beta$};\n \\draw[->] (0,-0.3) -- (0,2.9) node[above, font=\\small] {amplitude};\n \\node[font=\\footnotesize] at (-0.2,-0.22) {$0$};\n % Stable equilibrium beta < 0\n \\draw[blue!80, very thick] (-2.1,0) -- (0,0);\n % Unstable equilibrium beta >= 0\n \\draw[blue!80, very thick, dashed] (0,0) -- (2.2,0);\n % Unstable limit cycle amplitude sqrt(-beta), beta < 0\n \\draw[orange!80!black, very thick, dashed] plot[domain=-2.2:0,samples=60](\\x,{sqrt(-\\x)});\n \\node[blue!80, font=\\footnotesize] at (-1.1, 0.22) {stable};\n \\node[blue!80, font=\\footnotesize] at (1.1, -0.22) {unstable};\n \\node[orange!80!black, font=\\footnotesize] at (-1.7, 1.72) {unstable LC};\n\\end{scope}\n\n\\end{tikzpicture}\n\\end{document}"Subcritical(¾=+1)¯amplitude0stableunstableunstableLC
source code

Multi-dimensional Case

In the -dimensional case with the Jacobian matrix has

  • a simple pair of purely imaginary eigenvalues as well as
  • eigenvalues with and
  • eigenvalues with

with According to the Center Manifold Theorem, there is a family of smooth two-dimensional invariant manifolds near the origin. The -dimensional system restricted on is two-dimensional, hence has the normal form above.

Moreover, under the non-degeneracy conditions (AH.1) and (AH.2), the -dimensional system is locally topologically equivalent near the origin to the suspension of the normal form by the standard saddle, i.e.

where Figure 3 shows the phase portraits of the normal form suspension when and

First Lyapunov Exponent|Lyapunov Coefficient

Whether Andronov-Hopf bifurcation is subcritical or supercritical is determined by which is the sign of the first lyapunov coefficient of the dynamical system near the equilibrium. This coefficient can be computed at as follows. Write the Taylor expansion of at as

where and are the multilinear functions with components

where Let be a complex eigenvector of corresponding to the eigenvalue Introduce also the adjoint eigenvector Here is the inner product in Then (see, for example, Kuznetsov (2004))

where is the unit matrix. Note that the value (but not the sign) of depends on the scaling of the eigenvector The normalization is one of the options to remove this ambiguity. Standard bifurcation software (e.g. MATCONT) computes automatically.

For planar smooth ODEs with

the setting leads to the formula

where the lower indices mean partial derivatives evaluated at (cf. Guckenheimer and Holmes, 1983).

Some Important Examples

The first Lyapunov coefficient can be found easily in some simple but important examples (Izhikevich 2007). Here are positive parameters and all derivatives should be evaluated at the critical equilibrium.

SystemCondition

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{\rm sign}\left[F'''+F''(F''-G'')/(G'-a)\right] $$ | ## Other Cases Andronov-Hopf bifurcation occurs also in infinitely-dimensional ODEs generated by [PDEs](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Partial_Differential_Equations "Partial Differential Equations") and [DDEs](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Delay_Differential_Equations "Delay Differential Equations"), to which the [Center Manifold Theorem](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Center_Manifold_Theorem "Center Manifold Theorem") applies. An analogue of the Andronov-Hopf bifurcation - called **[Neimark-Sacker bifurcation](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Neimark-Sacker_bifurcation "Neimark-Sacker bifurcation")** - occurs in generic dynamical systems generated by iterated maps when the critical [fixed point](http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Fixed_point "Fixed point") has a pair of simple eigenvalues $\mu_{1,2}=e^{\pm i \theta} \ .$