Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2002/iii/paper-48/3/a/solution

Putting gives the local regular perturbation result . It cannot describe the whole half-line: its derivative grows like , making order one at .
The useful exact change of variables is
Direct substitution turns the equation into two autonomous differential equations,
The initial values here are . Near the origin, linearizing this system gives eigenvalues and . Equivalently, neglecting only the derivative-square nonlinearity in the original equation gives the two modes and . Their matching coefficients are
Thus the growing derivative has . Keeping these unexpanded linear-mode coefficients is convenient for matching; it does not assert that the linearized solution is the exact nonlinear one.
At the distinguished limit , set . To leading order the derivative equation becomes , the logistic differential equation. Matching as selects
Then , and the growing-mode matching gives
This proves the logistic crossover in a weakly nonlinear Euler equation. In particular the nonlinear-region leading solution is , or with the constants taken at their lowest order.
A composite asymptotic expansion retaining the small-distance stable mode and satisfying the initial value exactly is
Since , this matches when and hence at fixed as . Its derivative at one differs from the prescribed value only by , within leading-order accuracy. For it gives . Thus the composite covers the initial region, the nonlinear transition and the arbitrarily large- regime; uniform leading accuracy is understood relative to the growing solution, not as an absolute error independent of unbounded .
There is no later hidden growth regime. The exact positive system keeps in , because its vector field points inward at every boundary. Its positive equilibrium point is , with Jacobian matrix having trace and determinant . The origin has no attracting direction inside the positive quadrant, while the divergence excludes cycles by the Bendixson-Dulac theorem. The Poincaré-Bendixson theorem therefore gives convergence to the positive stable equilibrium. At fixed small positive , the exact far-field slope is , whose difference from is only relative , consistent with the global leading composite.

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