Lyapunov-Razumikhin techniques for state-dependent delay differential equations

Abstract

We present Lyapunov stability and asymptotic stability theorems for steady state solutions of general state-dependent delay differential equations (DDEs) using Lyapunov-Razumikhin methods. Our results apply to DDEs with multiple discrete state-dependent delays, which may be nonautonomous for the Lyapunov stability result, but autonomous (or periodically forced) for the asymptotic stability result. Our main technique is to replace the DDE by a nonautonomous ordinary differential equation (ODE) where the delayed terms become source terms in the ODE. The asymptotic stability result and its proof are entirely new, and based on a contradiction argument together with the Arzela-Ascoli theorem. This approach alleviates the need to construct auxiliary functions to ensure the asymptotic contraction, which is a feature of all other Lyapunov-Razumikhin asymptotic stability results of which we are aware. We apply our results to a state-dependent model equation which includes Hayes equation as a special case, to directly establish asymptotic stability in parts of the stability domain along with lower bounds on the size of the basin of attraction.