A centre of a differential system in the plane $ {\mathbb {R}}^2$ is an equilibrium point $p$ having a neighbourhood $U$ such that $U\setminus \{p\}$ is filled with periodic orbits. A centre $p$ is global when $ {\mathbb {R}}^2\setminus \{p\}$ is filled with periodic orbits. In general, it is a difficult problem to distinguish the centres from the foci for a given class of differential systems, and also it is difficult to distinguish the global centres inside the centres. The goal of this paper is to classify the centres and the global centres of the following class of quintic polynomial differential systems

\begin{align*} \dot{x}= y,\quad \dot{y}={-}x+a_{05}\,y^5+a_{14}\,x\,y^4+a_{23}\,x^2\,y^3+a_{32}\,x^3\,y^2+a_{41}\,x^4\,y+a_{50}\,x^5, \end{align*}

$ {\mathbb {R}}^2$

Analytic rotated vector fields have four significant properties: as the rotated parameter $\alpha$ changes, the amplitude of each stable (or unstable) limit cycle varies monotonically, each semi-stable limit cycle bifurcates at most two limit cycles, the isolated homoclinic loop (if exists) disappears while a unique limit cycle with the same stability arises or no closed orbits arise oppositely, and a unique limit cycle arises near the weak focus (if exists). In this paper, we prove that the four properties remain true for a rotated family of generalized Liénard systems having finitely many switching lines. Furthermore, we discuss variational exponent and use it to formulate multiplicity of limit cycles. Then we apply our results to give exact number of limit cycles to a continuous piecewise linear system with three zones and answer to a question on the maximum number of limit cycles in an SD oscillator.

For a general autonomous planar polynomial differential system, it is difficult to find conditions that are easy to verify and which guarantee global asymptotic stability, weakening the Markus–Yamabe condition. In this paper, we provide three conditions that guarantee the global asymptotic stability for polynomial differential systems of the form $x^{\prime}=f_1(x,y)$, $y^{\prime}=f_2(x,y)$, where f1 has degree one, f2 has degree $n\ge 1$ and has degree one in the variable y. As a consequence, we provide sufficient conditions, weaker than the Markus–Yamabe conditions that guarantee the global asymptotic stability for any generalized Liénard polynomial differential system of the form $x^{\prime}=y$, $y^{\prime}=g_1(x) +y g_2(x)$ with g1 and g2 polynomials of degrees n and m, respectively.

We work with polynomial three-dimensional rigid differential systems. Using the Lyapunov constants, we obtain lower bounds for the cyclicity of the known rigid centres on their centre manifolds. Moreover, we obtain an example of a quadratic rigid centre from which is possible to bifurcate 13 limit cycles, which is a new lower bound for three-dimensional quadratic systems.

Given $a,\,b\in \mathbb {R}$ and $\Phi \in C^{1}(\mathbb {S}^{2})$, we study immersed oriented surfaces $\Sigma$ in the Euclidean 3-space $\mathbb {R}^{3}$ whose mean curvature $H$ and Gauss curvature $K$ satisfy $2aH+bK=\Phi (N)$, where $N:\Sigma \rightarrow \mathbb {S}^{2}$ is the Gauss map. This theory widely generalizes some of paramount importance such as the ones constant mean and Gauss curvature surfaces, linear Weingarten surfaces and self-translating solitons of the mean curvature flow. Under mild assumptions on the prescribed function $\Phi$, we exhibit a classification result for rotational surfaces in the case that the underlying fully nonlinear PDE that governs these surfaces is elliptic or hyperbolic.

Motivated by the definition of rigid centres for planar differential systems, we introduce the study of rigid centres on the center manifolds of differential systems on $\mathbb {R}^{3}$. On the plane, these centres have been extensively studied and several interesting results have been obtained. We present results that characterize the rigid systems on $\mathbb {R}^{3}$ and solve the centre-focus problem for several families of rigid systems.

In 1958 started the study of the families of algebraic limit cycles in the class of planar quadratic polynomial differential systems. In the present we known one family of algebraic limit cycles of degree 2 and four families of algebraic limit cycles of degree 4, and that there are no limit cycles of degree 3. All the families of algebraic limit cycles of degree 2 and 4 are known, this is not the case for the families of degree higher than 4. We also know that there exist two families of algebraic limit cycles of degree 5 and one family of degree 6, but we do not know if these families are all the families of degree 5 and 6. Until today it is an open problem to know if there are algebraic limit cycles of degree higher than 6 inside the class of quadratic polynomial differential systems. Here we investigate the birth and death of all the known families of algebraic limit cycles of quadratic polynomial differential systems.

We present the complete classification of irreducible invariant algebraic curves of quadratic Liénard differential equations. We prove that these equations have irreducible invariant algebraic curves of unbounded degrees, in contrast with what is wrongly claimed in the literature. In addition, we classify all the quadratic Liénard differential equations that admit a Liouvillian first integral.

We provide sufficient conditions for the non-existence, existence and uniqueness of limit cycles surrounding a focus of a quadratic polynomial differential system in the plane.

In this paper we present sufficient conditions for all trajectories of the system to cross the vertical isocline h(y) = F(x), which is very important in the global asymptotic stability of the origin, oscillation theory and existence of periodic solutions. Also we give sufficient conditions for all trajectories which start at a point on the curve h(y) = F(x), to cross the y-axis which is closely connected with the existence of homoclinic orbits, stability of the zero solution, oscillation theory and the centre problem. The obtained results extend and improve some of the authors' previous results and some other theorems in the literature.

We investigate the bifurcation of limit cycles in one-parameter unfoldings of quadractic differential systems in the plane having a degenerate critical point at infinity. It is shown that there are three types of quadratic systems possessing an elliptic critical point which bifurcates from infinity together with eventual limit cycles around it. We establish that these limit cycles can be studied by performing a degenerate transformation which brings the system to a small perturbation of certain well-known reversible systems having a center. The corresponding displacement function is then expanded in a Puiseux series with respect to the small parameter and its coefficients are expressed in terms of Abelian integrals. Finally, we investigate in more detail four of the cases, among them the elliptic case (Bogdanov-Takens system) and the isochronous center ${{\mathcal{S}}_{3}}$. We show that in each of these cases the corresponding vector space of bifurcation functions has the Chebishev property: the number of the zeros of each function is less than the dimension of the vector space. To prove this we construct the bifurcation diagram of zeros of certain Abelian integrals in a complex domain.

In this paper we prove, that under certain hypotheses, the planar differential equation: ˙x = X1(x, y) + X2(x, y), ˙y = Y1(x, y) + Y2(x, y), where (Xi, Yi), i = 1, 2, are quasi-homogeneous vector fields, has at most two limit cycles. The main tools used in the proof are the generalized polar coordinates, introduced by Lyapunov to study the stability of degenerate critical points, and the analysis of the derivatives of the Poincar´e return map. Our results generalize those obtained for polynomial systems with homogeneous non-linearities.

We consider the Liénard's equation with f(x) polynomial. By using the generalized polar coordinates we establish the maximum possible number of small amplitude limit cycles of such equation in terms of the degree of f(x).

In this article we study the simultaneous generation of limit cycles out of singular points and infinity for the family of cubic planar systems

With a suitable choice of parameters, the origin and four other singularities are foci and infinity is a periodic orbit. We prove that it is possible to obtain the following configuration of limit cycles: two small amplitude limit cycles out of the origin, a small amplitude limit cycle out of each of the other four foci, and a large amplitude limit cycle out of infinity. We also obtain other configurations with fewer limit cycles.

We show that the Bogdanov-Takens system has at most one limit cycle. Similarly we show that the maximum number of limit cycles in the universal unfolding of the symmetric cusp of order 2 (resp. 3) is one (resp. 2). The proof uses the elementary technique of Liénard's equation, yielding a global result for all values of the parameters.