Transcritical bifurcation

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In bifurcation theory, a field within mathematics, a transcritical bifurcation is a particular kind of local bifurcation, meaning that it is characterized by an equilibrium having an eigenvalue whose real part passes through zero.

Both before and after the bifurcation, there is one unstable and one stable fixed point. However, their stability is exchanged when they collide. So the unstable fixed point becomes stable and vice versa.

The normal form of a transcritical bifurcation is

$\frac{dx}{dt}=rx-x^2. \,$

This equation is similar to logistic equation but in this case we allow $r$ and $x$ to be positive or negative (while in the logistic equation $x$ and $r$ must be non-negative).

A typical example (in real life) could be the consumer-producer problem where the consumption is proportional to the (quantity of) resource.

For example:

$\frac{dx}{dt}=rx(1-x)-px,$