Bifurcation values for a family of planar vector fields of degree five (Q480012)

The paper considers a family of quintic differential systems with a parameter \(b\) for which the existence of limit cycles is known for \(b\in(0,b^*)\), where \(b^*\) lies in the interval \((0,1.33)\). Moreover, for \(b=0\) there is a Hopf bifurcation and for \(b=b^*\) the limit cycle disappears in a polycycle. The main goal of the paper is to provide analytical tools to obtain \(b^*\). The authors find a small interval of length 0.027 containing \(b^*\). Moreover, they find a bifurcation value \(\hat b\) not observed before. So, the system has six (and not four, as it was supposed) different phase portraits and \(0.79<\hat b<b^*<0.817\). The new phase portraits are drawn and a proof for existence and uniqueness of a limit cycle for \(b\in(0,b^*)\) is provided. In the proof of these results, stated in Theorem 1.1, the authors develop a new tool which consists in using asymptotic expansions of the separatrices of the infinite singular points to construct explicit piecewise rational curves without contact for the flow of the system. These curves will then allow to control the global relative positions of the separatrices of the infinite singular points. For the uniqueness and hyperbolicity of the limit cycle a new proof is provided using an explicit rational Dulac function. The tools introduced here can be applied to other families of polynomial vector fields to control analytically their bifurcation values. The authors solve computational difficulties with a general method based in the double discriminant provided in the appendix.