Stability, Bifurcation and Dynamics in a Network with Delays

In real-world networks, due to complex topological structures and uncertainties such as time delays, uncontrolled systems may generate instability and complexity, thereby degrading network performance. This paper provides a detailed analysis of the stability, Hopf bifurcation, and complex dynamics of a networked system under delayed feedback control. Based on the linear stability method and Hopf bifurcation theorem, the stability of the equilibrium of the error system and the existence of Hopf bifurcation are studied. The stability of periodic solutions bifurcating from the trivial equilibrium is analyzed using normal form theory and central manifold theorem. Special focus is on the effects of the network topology and time delays on the stability and Hopf bifurcation. The theoretical results are also extended to the complex networks with asymmetric adjacent matrices. In addition, the controlled model exhibits complicated dynamical behavior via three types of codimension two bifurcations and period-doubling bifurcations that eventually lead to chaos. Numerical experiments have validated the theoretical results and indicated that delayed feedback control can effectively generate or annihilate the complicated behavior of complex networks.