Nilpotent cubic damping invariant 2026-10-14
For a reflection-symmetric vector field , , introduce , . Differentiating gives and a cubic acceleration with coefficient . The contribution comes from differentiating the first equation's cubic term. Further cubic near-identity transformations can remove nonresonant terms but cannot turn into a nonzero coefficient by a nonsingular scaling. This is a useful check before assigning a generic reflection-symmetric Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation to a calculated Taylor expansion.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2001 iii Paper 51 1 a Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Write for the homogeneous cubic correction and for the nilpotent linear part. The chain rule gives the transformed cubic vector field as . Thus the cubic coefficients in the first equation arewhile those in the second equation areConsequently one explicit near-identity transformation isThe transformed equations have no cubic correction in , and only survive in . The cubic coefficients areThis is the cubic elimination at a nilpotent double-zero point; the extra is the nilpotent cubic damping invariant contribution from the first equation. Higher-order terms generated by the substitution are outside the cubic truncation.
Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2003 iii Paper 59 1 c Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
The cubic Taylor expansion at the double-zero point isThere are no quadratic or quartic terms because the local vector field is odd under . Set , , and use . The linear transformation is invertible, and the positive time rescaling preserves orbit orientation. With primes denoting , the result isThis supplies the requested cubic functions, with a remainder stronger than .
There is an important normal form check. Setting , straightens the first equation, and differentiating givesIn particular the nilpotent cubic damping invariant is . A nonsingular cubic near-identity transformation and rescaling cannot change this vanishing invariant into the nonzero coefficient in the supplied later normal form. The conclusions for that assumed system are therefore given separately from the independently derived conclusions for the printed original equations.
Adjoin and put . The extended centre manifold is a graph tangent to at the origin. The equations becomeHere is fixed. The centre-manifold invariance equation, obtained by the chain rule, isWrite , where and is a homogeneous quadratic polynomial. To quadratic order the centre-manifold invariance equation isThe terms have zero coefficients: their equations are homogeneous, and the operator is invertible on these quadratic polynomials. For , comparison of coefficients givesHence , and , givingSubstitution into the equation givesThe constant in the big O notation may depend on fixed . Thus the equations printed in part (b) are the retained terms of the local Taylor series, rather than an exact identity for the full reduced vector field.
For the Hopf bifurcation classification in part (a), set and use , . The radial derivative is . Its cubic angular mean isHere denotes the mean over one revolution. Removing the oscillatory cubic terms by a near-identity transformation gives this same cubic radial coefficient in the Hopf normal form. The linear radial coefficient is .