Existence and stability of a quasi-periodic two-dimensional motion of a self-propelled particle

The mechanism of self-propelled particle motion has attracted much interest in mathematical and physical understanding of the locomotion of living organisms. In a top-down approach, simple time-evolution equations are suitable for qualitatively analyzing the transition between the different types of solutions and the influence of the intrinsic symmetry of systems despite failing to quantitatively reproduce the phenomena. We aim to rigorously show the existence of the rotational, oscillatory, and quasi-periodic solutions and determine their stabilities regarding a canonical equation proposed by Koyano et al. (J Chem Phys 143(1):014117, 2015) for a self-propelled particle confined by a parabolic potential. In the proof, the original equation is reduced to a lower dimensional dynamical system by applying Fenichel’s theorem on the persistence of normally hyperbolic invariant manifolds and the averaging method. Furthermore, the averaged system is identified with essentially a one-dimensional equation because the original equation is O(2)-symmetric.