The term bifurcation generally refers to something "splitting apart." With
regard to differential equations or systems involving a parameter, it refers
to abrupt changes in the character of the solutions as the parameter is
changed contimously. Problems illustrate sensitive cases in which small
perturbations in the coefficients of a linear or almost linear system can
change the type or stability (or both) of a critical point.
$$
\begin{aligned}
&\text { This problem deals with the almost linear system }\\\
&\frac{d x}{d t}=y+h x\left(x^{2}+y^{2}\right), \quad \frac{d y}{d t}=-x+h
y\left(x^{2}+y^{2}\right)
\end{aligned}
$$
in illustration of the sensitive case of Theorem 2, in which the theorem
provides no information about the stability of the critical point \((0,0)\). (a)
Show that \((0,0)\) is a center of the linear system obtained by setting \(h=0 .\)
(b) Suppose that \(h \neq 0\). Let \(r^{2}=x^{2}+y^{2}\), then apply the fact that
$$
x \frac{d x}{d t}+y \frac{d y}{d t}=r \frac{d r}{d t}
$$
to show that \(d r / d t=h r^{3} . \quad\) (c) Suppose that \(h=-1 .\) Integrate
the differential equation in (b); then show that \(r \rightarrow 0\) as \(t
\rightarrow+\infty\). Thus \((0,0)\) is an asymptotically stable critical point
of the almost linear system in this case. (d) Suppose that \(h=+1 .\) Show that
\(r \rightarrow+\infty\) as \(t\) increases, so \((0,0)\) is an unstable critical
point in this case.