Holomorphic flows on simply connected regions have no limit cycles (Q1419473): Difference between revisions

The paper under review deals with a one-dimensional holomorphic vector field \[ \dot z=f(z),\;z\in\mathbb C,\tag{1} \] \(f(z)\) is an entire function. It is well known that any vector field (1) possesses the following properties: -- each nondegenerate singular point is a center (focus, node), if and only if so is it for the linear part of the field; -- the periods of closed trajectories in a neighborhood of a center are equal; -- there are no limit cycles,\dots. These statements are well known (at least on the folklore level) since long time ago and may be found, e.g., in the papers [\textit{H. E. Benzinger}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 326, 465--483 (1991; Zbl 0727.34004); \textit{L. Perko}, Differential equations and dynamical systems, Texts in Applied Mathematics, 7, New York, NY: Springer (1996; Zbl 0854.34001)]. The author makes the following interesting observations: -- the curvature of a phase curve at a nonsingular point \(z_0\) is zero, if and only if the imaginary part of the derivative \(f'(z_0)\) vanishes; -- if \(f(z)\) is a qubic or quartic polynomial such that each singular point of the vector field (1) is a center, then the singular points (centers) lie in one and the same line. The author formulates the conjecture saying that for any meromorphic function \(f(z)\) the flow (1) has no limit cycles. To the reviewer's point of view the positive answer is immediate. Here is the proof. Take arbitrary closed trajectory \(g\) and let us show that it is not a limit cycle, more precisely, that some its neighborhood is saturated by closed trajectories. Let \(T\) be the period. The time \(T\) flow map is well defined and holomorphic in a neighborhood of \(g\) and fixes each point of \(g\). Hence, it is the identity by uniqueness of the analytic extension, so, each trajectory neighbor to \(g\) is closed with the same period. Reviewer's remark: Statements (d)--(f) of Corollary 4.1 (page 708) are false. Namely, statement (d) says that if (1) has only centers and nodes, then there is more than one center and more than one node. Obvious counterexample: a real polynomial \(f(z)\) having only real roots. The same example disproves both statement (e) (which says that no qubic system has only centers and nodes) and statement (f) (which says that each cubic system has at least one focus). The statements (e)--(f) will become true under the additional assumption saying that there is at least one center and at least one node. The conjecture following Corollary 4.1 is false as is stated and is disproved by the previous counterexample.