Behavior of Totally Positive Differential Systems Near a Periodic Solution

A time-varying nonlinear dynamical system is called a totally positive differential system (TPDS) if its Jacobian admits a special sign pattern: it is tri-diagonal with positive entries on the super- and sub-diagonals. If the vector field of a TPDS is T-periodic then every bounded trajectory converges to a T-periodic solution. In particular, when the vector field is time-invariant every bounded trajectory of a TPDS converges to an equilibrium. We use the spectral theory of oscillatory matrices to analyze the behavior near a periodic solution of a TPDS. This yields explicit information on the perturbation directions that lead to the fastest and slowest convergence to or divergence from the periodic solution. We demonstrate the theoretical results using a model from systems biology called the ribosome flow model.