HOPF BIFURCATION AND CENTRE BIFURCATION IN THREE DIMENSIONAL LOTKA-VOLTERRA SYSTEMS

Abstract

This thesis presents a study of the centre bifurcation and chaotic behaviour of three dimensional Lotka-Volterra systems. In two dimensional systems, \citet{Christopher2005} considered a simple computational approach to estimate the cyclicity bifurcating from the centre. We generalized the technique to estimate the cyclicity of the centre in three dimensional systems. A lower bounds is given for the cyclicity of a hopf point in the three dimensional Lotka-Volterra systems via centre bifurcations. Sufficient conditions for the existence of a centre are obtained via the Darboux method using inverse Jacobi multiplier functions. For a given centre, the cyclicity is bounded from below by considering the linear parts of the corresponding Liapunov quantities of the perturbed system. Although the number obtained is not new, the technique is fast and can easily be adapted to other systems. The same technique is applied to estimate the cyclicity of a three dimensional system with a plane of singularities. As a result, eight limit cycles are shown to bifurcate from the centre by considering the quadratic parts of the corresponding Liapunov quantities of the perturbed system.

This thesis also examines the chaotic behaviour of three dimensional Lotka-Volterra systems. For studying the chaotic behaviour, a geometric method is used. We construct an example of a three dimensional Lotka-Volterra system with a saddle-focus critical point of Shilnikov type as well as a loop. A construction of the heteroclinic cycle that joins the critical point with two other critical points of type planar saddle and axial saddle is undertaken. Furthermore, the local behaviour of trajectories in a small neighbourhood of the critical points is investigated. The dynamics of the Poincare map around the heteroclinic cycle can exhibit chaos by demonstrating the existence of a horseshoe map. The proof uses a Shilnikov-type structure adapted to the geometry of these systems. For a good understanding of the global dynamics of the system, the behaviour at infinity is also examined. This helps us to draw the global phase portrait of the system.

The last part of this thesis is devoted to a study of the zero-Hopf bifurcation of the three dimensional Lotka-Volterra systems. Explicit conditions for the existence of two first integrals for the system and a line of singularity with zero eigenvalue are given. We characteristic the parameters for which a zero-Hopf equilibrium point takes place at any points on the line. We prove that there are three 3-parameter families exhibiting such equilibria. First order of averaging theory is also applied but we show that it gives no information about the possible periodic orbits bifurcating from the zero-Hopf equilibria.