The stationary equations are
Thus
always exist, and for there are also
The Jacobian matrix is
At its eigenvalues are , so it is a saddle for , a stable node for , and nonhyperbolic at . At they are , so it is a saddle for , an unstable node for , and nonhyperbolic at .
At , for , the characteristic polynomial is
The equilibria are stable for and unstable for ; they are foci when and nodes when , with a repeated-eigenvalue transition at equality. For the eigenvalues are purely imaginary. In that case the system is Hamiltonian with first integral
because and . The Hessian of is positive definite at and negative definite at , so nearby regular level sets are closed curves. Hence both nonhyperbolic equilibria are genuine nonlinear centers.
Finally,
For this has a strict constant sign throughout the simply connected plane, so the Bendixson-Dulac criterion proves that there are no periodic orbits. These results comprise the phase portrait of x dot equals two x times y minus a.
Hamilton's equations are
A time-independent function is a first integral when it is constant along every Hamiltonian trajectory. Since
this is equivalent to .
The -dimensional Hamiltonian system is integrable when it possesses first integrals that are functionally independent on a dense open set and in mutual involution:
Along a trajectory, the chain rule gives
Thus is a first integral, and every trajectory lies on one of its level sets.
The two Euler-Lagrange equations are
Differentiating along an extremal and using these equations gives . Hence the Beltrami identity makes constant when has no explicit dependence on . If omits or , that variable is a cyclic coordinate and the corresponding momentum or is an additional first integral; continuous symmetries give the analogous conserved quantities through Noether's theorem.
Put . Since is cyclic,
for a constant . The Beltrami integral is
Therefore
If , then and
For , define
the hinted identity gives . Hence . Because as , the prescribed limit selects the minus sign:
As , the logarithm tends to , so every such solution satisfies .
The linear dispersion relation for a mode is . The proposed modes share phase velocity , so . A quadratic wave interaction generates the second harmonic and the difference harmonic. With only two positive wavenumbers, phase matching for a quadratic wave interaction requires . Equating their phase velocities gives
and therefore
This is a two-to-one resonance of dispersive waves. Its amplitude changes accumulate on . Choose the slow time ; this harmless constant rescaling makes the later amplitude formulas simple. With , the leading real field is .
For the fundamental, the order- cross derivative in is , while the fundamental coefficient in is . For the second harmonic the corresponding terms are and . The solvability condition in the method of multiple scales removes the resonant forcing and gives
The nonresonant third and fourth harmonics enter the correction. They do not change these leading amplitude equations.
Write , and . Taking real and imaginary parts gives the explosive two-to-one amplitude system in polar form:
The polar phases are used where their corresponding amplitudes are nonzero. These equations imply
For the second identity, differentiate using : the terms proportional to cancel. Therefore
are first integrals, and in particular
For constant phases with , these real equations reduce to and . The initial data give , so the Riccati equation for is . Integrating and using gives
The tangent and secant function have a pole at , corresponding to . Both modes grow through their locked resonant interaction. This is formal finite-time blowup of the reduced amplitude equations; the weakly nonlinear expansion loses validity as the amplitudes become large, so it cannot establish a singularity of the full partial differential equation.
For , take the Logarithmic first integral of the Lotka-Volterra equations
Along a trajectory,
Thus is a first integral. The scalar function is nonnegative for , vanishes only at , and tends to infinity as or . Moreover,
is positive definite, so is strictly convex. It follows that is its unique critical point and every level set is a compact smooth simple closed curve in the positive quadrant. The vector field is nonzero on such a level curve, so uniqueness of solutions makes each connected level curve one periodic orbit. The zero level consists of the fixed point . Hence every trajectory in is either periodic or the fixed point .
Given a solution , construct and hence the smooth matrices and . Let solve the linear ordinary differential equation
Because is skew-symmetric,
so is an orthogonal matrix and is invertible. Moreover,
It follows that
Thus the Lax pair flow is an Isospectral Lax equation: every is similar to and has the same eigenvalues and characteristic polynomial.
Every symmetric function of these constant eigenvalues is a first integral. In particular, the trace invariants of a Lax equation
are constant because the cyclic property of the trace gives
For example,
is an explicit first integral of equation .
When is independent of and ,
Put
The zero-curvature equation becomes
Since
we obtain the Isospectral Lax equation
Therefore, for every positive integer , the cyclic property of the matrix trace gives
These are the trace invariants of a Lax equation.
The PDE from part (b) reduces to
With , this is
To extract a nontrivial invariant, use . Writing , direct multiplication gives
The terms involving are constant, and . Hence
is a first integral. Direct differentiation verifies it:
The only positive equilibrium solves and , hence is
Away from a nullcline,
This is separable:
Integration gives the first integral
Thus one convenient conserved quantity is
Its gradient is
so is its only stationary point in the positive quadrant. Its Hessian matrix is
which is positive definite everywhere. Hence is a strict, indeed global, minimum.
The nearby level curves of are closed curves surrounding this minimum. Since is constant along every trajectory, a solution starting on a sufficiently small nearby level set cannot leave the region bounded by a slightly larger level set. This proves Lyapunov stability of the equilibrium: solutions initially close to remain close for all time.
Dividing the equation by the equation gives
Therefore
is a first integral. Define the basic reproduction number by . At the removal peak, , and hence
and, using ,
Write , , , and let be the first fundamental form. Since
differentiating and , or equivalently taking the two inner products of the second formula with , gives
The matrix is invertible because is a regular embedded surface parametrization. Consequently the two geodesic equations hold exactly when is orthogonal to both tangent vectors and , which says precisely that is a normal vector. This is the ambient acceleration criterion for a surface geodesic.
Because is tangent and is normal,
Thus an affinely parametrized geodesic has constant speed, as recorded by constant speed of an affinely parametrized geodesic.
For a surface of revolution, use profile arc length and azimuth . Its Riemannian metric is
The azimuth is an ignorable coordinate, so the corresponding geodesic equation has the first integral
If and is the oriented angle with the parallel, then the component of velocity along the parallel is
Since is constant,
This is the Clairaut first integral for a surface of revolution.
The potential factorizes as
It is even and nonnegative, with three degenerate vacua at . Its two intervening maxima occur at and have height .
A finite-energy static solution in one dimension satisfies
Multiplication by and use of the vacuum boundary conditions gives the first integral
Any path from a negative vacuum to a positive vacuum must pass through the intermediate vacuum . There both and vanish. The Picard-Lindelof theorem then forces a solution reaching at finite to remain there. Equivalently, the first-order orbit approaches only as . This intermediate-vacuum obstruction to a kink means that a single kink cannot connect to ; it splits into two elementary kinks at infinite separation.