Revisiting linear augmentation for stabilizing stationary solutions: potential pitfalls and their application

Linear augmentation has recently been shown to be effective in targeting desired stationary solutions, suppressing bistablity, in regulating the dynamics of drive response systems and in controlling the dynamics of hidden attractors. The simplicity of the procedure is the highlight of this scheme but at the same time questions related to its general applicability still need to be addressed. Focusing on the issue of targeting stationary solutions, this work demonstrates instances where the scheme fails to stabilize the required solutions and leads to other complicated dynamical scenarios. Appropriate examples from conservative as well as dissipative systems are presented in this regard and potential applications for relevant observations in dissipative predator--prey systems are also discussed.