TITLE: Find the Floquet multipliersfor the Markus & Yamabe system
QUESTION [5 upvotes]: I need some help with the following excersice.Find the minimum period and the Floquet multipliers $\bf\lambda_{1},\lambda_{2}$ of the following matrix.
$A(t)=\begin{bmatrix}-1+\frac{3}{2}cos^2(t) & 1-\frac{3}{2}cos(t)sin(t)\\-1-\frac{3}{2}cos(t)sin(t) & -1+\frac{3}{2}sin^2(t)\end{bmatrix}$
It is obvious that the minimum period of A is $\pi$,just by using the double-angle formulas $\cos^2(t)=\frac{1+cos(2t)}{2},sin^2(t)=\frac{1-cos(2t)}{2}$.Furthermore by using the relation $$\prod_{i=1}^2\lambda_{i}=e^{\intop_0^T trace(A(s))ds}$$ we get easily that $\prod_{i=1}^2\lambda_{i}=e^{-\frac{\pi}{2}}$.But now i am stuck!

REPLY [3 votes]: There are two useful facts:

$\hat x(t)=e^{t/2}\left(\begin{array}{r}-\cos t\\ \sin t\end{array}\right)$ is a solution of the Markus-Yamabe system;
if some nontrivial solution $x(t)$ has the property $x(t+T)=\lambda x(t)$, then $\lambda$ is a Floquet 
multiplier of the system. 

Combining these two facts, we can deduce that $\lambda_1=-e^{\pi/2}$ is a multiplier of the system:
$$
\hat x(t+\pi)=e^{(t+\pi)/2}\left(\begin{array}{r}-\cos (t+ \pi)\\ \sin (t+\pi)\end{array}\right)
=e^{\pi/2}e^{t/2}\left(\begin{array}{r}\cos t\\ -\sin t\end{array}\right)=
-e^{\pi/2}\hat x(t).
$$
Another multiplier can be obtained from the equality $\lambda_1 \lambda_2= e^{-\pi/2}$.