ON THE LOCAL QUALITATIVE BEHAVIOR OF DIFFERENTIAL-ALGEBRAIC EQUATIONS

A theoretical framework for the investigation of the qualitative behavior of differential-algebraic equations (DAEs) near an equilibrium point is established. The key notion of our approach is the notion of regularity. A DAE is called regular locally around an equilibrium point if there is a unique vector field such that the solutions of the DAE and the vector field are in one-to-one correspondence in a neighborhood of this equilibrium point. Sufficient conditions for the regularity of an equilibrium point are stated. This in turn allows us to translate several local results, as formulated for vector fields, to DAEs that are regular locally around a given equilibrium point (e.g. Local Stable and Unstable Manifold Theorem, Hopf theorem). It is important that these theorems are stated in terms of the given problem and not in terms of the corresponding vector field.