Bifurcation in mean phase portraits for stochastic dynamical systems with multiplicative Gaussian noise

Abstract: We investigate the bifurcation phenomena for stochastic systems with multiplicative Gaussian noise, by examining qualitative changes in mean phase portraits. Starting from the Fokker-Planck equation for the probability density function of solution processes, we compute the mean orbits and mean equilibrium states. A change in the number or stability type, when a parameter varies, indicates a stochastic bifurcation. Specifically, we study stochastic bifurcation for three prototypical dynamical systems (i.e., saddle-node, transcritical, and pitchfork systems) under multiplicative Gaussian noise, and have found some interesting phenomena in contrast to the corresponding deterministic counterparts.