Hopf Bifurcations in Replicator Dynamics with Distributed Delays

Abstract

In this paper, we study the existence and the property of the Hopf bifurcation in the two-strategy replicator dynamics with distributed delays. In evolutionary games, we assume that a strategy would take an uncertain time delay to have a consequence on the fitness (or utility) of the players. As the mean delay increases, a change in the stability of the equilibrium (Hopf bifurcation) may occur at which a periodic oscillation appears. We consider Dirac, uniform, Gamma, and discrete delay distributions, and we use the Poincaré- Lindstedt's perturbation method to analyze the Hopf bifurcation. Our theoretical results are corroborated with numerical simulations.