Slow–Fast Behaviors and Their Mechanism in a Periodically Excited Dynamical System with Double Hopf Bifurcations

This paper focuses on the influence of two scales in the frequency domain on the behaviors of a typical dynamical system with a double Hopf bifurcation. By introducing an external periodic excitation to the normal form of the vector field with double Hopf bifurcation at the origin and taking the exciting frequency far less than the natural frequency, a theoretical model with two scales in the frequency domain is established. Regarding the whole exciting term as a slow-varying parameter leads to a generalized autonomous system, in which the equilibrium branches and their bifurcations with the variation of the slow-varying parameter can be derived. With the increase of the exciting amplitude, different types of bifurcations may be involved in the generalized autonomous system, resulting in several qualitatively different forms of bursting attractors, the mechanism of which is presented by overlapping the transformed phase portraits and the bifurcations of the equilibrium branches. It is found that the single mode 2D torus may evolve to the bursting attractors with mixed modes, in which the trajectory alternates between the single mode oscillations and the mixed mode oscillations. Furthermore, the transitions between the quiescent states and the spiking states may not occur exactly at the bifurcation points because of the slow passage effect, while Hopf bifurcations may cause different forms of repetitive spiking oscillations.