Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2006 / ii / Paper 3 / 7E (Dynamical Systems)

Representative normal forms are $\dot{x}=\mu +x^2$ for a saddle-node bifurcation, $\dot{x}=\mu x-x^2$ for a transcritical bifurcation, and $\dot{x}=\mu x-x^3$ for a supercritical pitchfork bifurcation. Replacing the last cubic term by $+x^3$ gives the subcritical pitchfork bifurcation.

Treat $\mu$ as a variable with $\dot{\mu }=0$. The extended center manifold is tangent to $y=0$, so write $y=h(x,\mu )=A{x}^2+Bx\mu +C{\mu }^2+O((|x|+|\mu |{)}^3)$. Its invariance equation is $h_x\dot{x}=\dot{y}$. At quadratic order this readsMatching coefficients gives $A=2$, $B=-4$, $C=4$. Substitution into the first equation therefore givesHere $O(3)$ denotes total degree at least three in $(x,\mu )$. With $T=t$, $X=x-2\mu$ and $\tilde{\mu }=\mu$, this becomes $dX/dT=\tilde{\mu }+X^2+O(3)$. Thus $\alpha =1$, $\beta =2$, $\gamma (\mu )=\mu$, and the bifurcation is a saddle-node. For negative parameter, the negative-$X$ branch is stable and the positive-$X$ branch unstable along the center manifold; the transverse eigenvalue is near $-1$.