Periodic perturbations of reducible scalar second order functional differential equations

Abstract

Using a topological approach we investigate the structure of the set of forced oscillations of a class of reducible second order functional retarded differential equations subject to periodic forcing. More precisely, we consider a delay-type functional dependence involving a gamma probability distribution and, using a linear chain trick, we formulate a first order system of ODEs whose $T$-periodic solutions correspond to those of the functional equation.

Keywords

• functional differential equations
• branches of periodic solutions
• linear chain trick
• brouwer degree