2.

4 Qualitative Behavior of Equations

Often one would like to know the qualitative behavior of the solution of a differential equation. Qualitative
behavior includes things like

1. Is the solution increasing or decreasing or some of each?

2. Is the solution periodic and, if so, what is the period?

2. What happens to the solution for large t?

These are questions related to the gross appearance of the graph of the solution. Questions like these can be
answered by solving the equation and getting this information directly from the solution and its graph.
However, for some equations one can get this information without solving the equation. In this section, we see
how this is done for equations of the form

(1) = g(x)

(2) x = x0 when t = t0

where

t = time
x = x(t) = something which varies with time
g(x) = some given function

For simplicity, we shall assume that g(x) is continuous for those x for which it is defined. The equation (1) is
separable, so we will often be able to solve it using the separation of variable technique of section 2.2.
However, the methods in this section allow us to determine the qualitative behavior of the solution without
actually solving the equation. We illustrate the technique using one of the examples we used for solving
separable equations

Example 1. Without actually solving the following equation and initial condition, find the qualitative
behavior of the solution of

(3) = 2N - N2

(4) N = 10 when t = 0

In other words, sketch the graph of the solution.

Recall, in that example N = N(t) is the number of mosquitoes in a certain area at time t. Comparing (2) with
(1) we see that in (2) one has x = N and g(N) = 2N - N2.

In order to determine the qualitative behavior of an equation of the form (1) you do the following steps.

2.4 - 1
Step 1. Find the equilibrium solutions.

An equilibrium solution (or steady state solution) is one that is constant in time. For the equation (1) it is a
solution of the form x(t)  C where C where C is a constant. Note that for an equilibrium solution one has . If
we plug x(t)  C and use the fact that we get

(5) g(C) = 0

The solutions of this equation are called the equilibrium values. Thus equilibrium solutions correspond to
solutions of the equation (5). For each solution C to (5) one obtains an equilibrium solution x(t)  C. There
may be one, more than one or no solutions to (5) and hence there may be one, more than one or no equilibrium
solutions.

Equilibrium solutions usually don’t satisfy the initial conditions (2), so they usually don’t provide the solution
to the initial value problem (1) – (2). However, equilibrium solutions have a strong affect on the other
solutions. Often a non-equilibrium solution approaches an equilibrium solution as time gets large.

In nature, equilibrium solutions correspond to situations where some physical system is in equilibrium, i.e. not
changing in time. For example, in chemistry, we may mix some chemicals together. At the beginning they are
reacting and the system is changing with time. However, after a while the reaction is essentially over and the
system is at equilibrium. The law of mass action often allows one to calculate the concentrations of the
chemicals at equilibrium.

For the differential equation (3) the equilibrium solutions are of the form x(t)  C where C is a solution to

2C - C2 = 0

C(2 – C) = 0

C = 0 or 2 – C = 0

The solution of the second equation is C = 2 or C = 20. So C = 0 and C = 20 are the two equilibrium values
and N(t)  0 and N(t)  20 are the two equilibrium solutions. Note that neither one satisfies the initial
condition (4), so we are not done.
20

The equilibrium solutions are easy to graph. Their graphs are just
horizontal lines through the equilibrium values on the vertical axis. At the 15

right are the graphs of the equilibrium solutions N(t)  0 and N(t)  20 in 10

Example 1. 5

Step 2. Find where the right hand side of the equation g(x) is positive 0
2 4 6 8 10

and negative.

Let R = g(x) be the equation of the right hand side of the equation. In our example the right hand side of the
equation is g(N) = 2N - N2, so R = 2N - N2. For the moment forget that N depends on t and treat N as an

2.4 - 2
independent variable. We want to determine the values of N for which N is positive and negative. In Step 1
we found the values of N for which R = 0. These are the equilibrium values. To the equilibrium values we add
the points where g(x) is not defined. These points divide the x axis into intervals such that g(x) is either
positive or negative in each interval. We want to determine the sign of R in these intervals. There are several
ways to do this.

In the case of equation (3) where R = 2N - N2 the variable R is a quadratic function of N with the coefficient of
N2 negative, so the graph is a parabola opening down. So R is positive between the equilibrium values, i.e. for
0 < N < 20. And negative to the to the left of the left equilibrium value and to the right of the right
equilibrium value, i.e. for N < 0 and N > 20. At the right is the graph of R vs N. To summarize, R is positive
10

for N between 0 and 20 and R is negative for N less than 0 and N

greater than 20. 5

 5 5 10 15 20 25

It is useful to display this information on a sign diagram which we

 5

illustrate with equation (3). In this case it is simply the N axis with +
signs above the interval 0 < N < 20 and – signs above the intervals  10

N < 0 and N > 20.

- - - . + + + + . - -
N
0 20

Another way to determine the sign in the intervals between the equilibrium values is to pick a value of N in
each interval and calculate the sign of R. Another way is to evaluate dR/dN at each equilibrium value. If
dR/dN is positive at an equilibrium value then R is positive in the interval to the right of the equilibrium value
and negative to the left of the equilibrium value. If dR/dN is negative at an equilibrium value then the
situation is just the opposite, i.e. R is negative in the interval to the right of the equilibrium value and positive
to the left of the equilibrium value.

Step 3. Determine increasing / decreasing behavior of solution.

Consider the general case of equation (1), i.e. = g(x). x will increase as t increases if ‡ 0 and x will decrease
as t increases if  0. Since = g(x), it follows that x will increase as t increases if g(x(t)) ‡ 0 and x will
decrease as t increases if g(x(t))  0. In step 2 we determined the intervals where g(x) was positive and the
intervals where g(x) was negative. When the solution lies in one of these intervals x will either increase as t
increases or decrease when t increases depending on whether the interval is an interval of positivity or
negativity of g(x).

Consider equation (3) where g(N) = 2N - N2. In step 2 we saw that g(N) is positive for 0 < N < 20 and
negative for N < 0 and N > 20. So N increases as t increases as long as 0 < N(t) < 20 and N decreases as t
increases as long as N(t) < 0 or N(t) > 0.

2.4 - 3
Problem 1 For each of the following differential equations, (a) sketch the phase line, (b) identify the
equilibrium points, (c) classify the equlibrium points as sinks or sources (d) sketch a few solutions showing
their behavior as t   .
a. y’ + y2 – 1 = 0 Answer: y = 1 is a sink and y = -1 is a source
b. y’ = y (y – 2y – 8)
2
Answer: y = 0 is a sink and y = 4 and y = -2 are sources

Problem 2 For each of the following differential equations use the phase line to predict the behavior of the
solution satisfying the given initial condition as t  .
a. y’ = y2 – 7y + 10, y(0) = 3 Answer: y(t)  2.
b. y’ = y (y – 2y – 8),
2
y(0) = -1 Answer: y(t)  0.

2.4 - 4