A note on differential equations of logistic type

Abstract

Logistic equations play a pivotal role in the study of any nonlinear evolution process exhibiting growth and saturation. The interest for the phenomenology they rule goes well beyond physical processes and covers many aspects of ecology, population growth, economy. . . According to such a broad range of applications, there are different forms of functions and distributions which are recognized as generalized logistics. Sometimes they are obtained by fitting procedures. Therefore, criteria might be needed to infer the associated nonlinear differential equations, useful to guess “hidden” evolution mechanisms. In this article we analyze different forms of logistic functions and use simple means to reconstruct the differential equation they satisfy. Our study includes also differential equations containing nonstandard forms of derivative operators, like those of the Laguerre type.