Weakly nonlinear oscillations: A perturbative approach

The perturbative analysis of a one-dimensional harmonic oscillator subject to a small nonlinear perturbation is developed within the framework of two popular methods: normal forms and multiple time scales. The systems analyzed are the Duffing oscillator, an energy conserving oscillatory system, the cubically damped oscillator, a system that exhibits damped oscillations, and the Van der Pol oscillator, which represents limit-cycle systems. Special emphasis is given to the exploitation of the freedom inherent in the calculation of the higher-order terms in the expansion and to the comparison of the application of the two methods to the three systems.