Computation of Floquet Multipliers Using an Iterative Method for Variational Equations

This paper proposes a new method to numerically obtain Floquet multipliers which characterize stability of periodic orbits of ordinary differential equations. For sufficiently smooth periodic orbits, we can compute Floquet multipliers using some standard numerical methods with enough accuracy. However, it has been reported that these methods may produce incorrect results under some conditions. In this work, we propose a new iterative method to compute Floquet multipliers using eigenvectors of matrix solutions of the variational equations. Numerical examples show effectiveness of the proposed method. key words: numerical method, stability, ordinary differential equations, periodic orbits, Floquet multipliers