A necessary condition in the monodromy problem for analytic differential equations on the plane (Q2457378)

Consider a system of ordinary differential equations \[ \dot x = P(x,y),\quad \dot y = Q(x,y) \] on \(R^2\) for which \(P\) and \(Q\) are coprime analytic functions in a neighborhood of \((0,0)\) and \(P(0,0) = Q(0,0) = 0\). A characteristic orbit at the origin of the system of differential equations is an orbit \(\gamma(t)\) of the system such that \(\gamma(t) \to (0,0)\) as \(t \to \infty\) and \(\gamma(t)/\| \gamma(t)\| \in S^1\) has a limit as \(t \to \infty\) (or if this is true for the time-reversed flow). Call the isolated singularity at the origin monodromic if there does not exist a characteristic orbit. In such a case the origin must be a focus or a center. The authors derive a readily computed necessary condition for existence of a characteristic orbit. They present an algorithm for applying this and other known conditions in a systematic fashion and illustrate it with a collection of examples.