Dynamics of a system exhibiting the global bifurcation of a limit cycle at infinity (Q1104469)

The existence and approximation of limit cycles of the nonlinear equation (1) \(x''+x-\epsilon x'(1-ax^ 2-bx^{'2})=0\) (where \(\epsilon >0\) and a,b are parameters) is studied. Note that (1) includes, as particular cases, the Rayleigh and Van der Pol equations. To prove their results the authors use different techniques (The Poincaré-Bendixson theorem, the Lindstedt perturbation method, center manifold theory, etc.). Specially they examine the equation at infinity (i.e. for large x,x') and this is very important to explain the global bifurcations which lead to the existence of the limit cycle. Moreover, numerical integration is used to verify the analytical results. Also, some figures are included in the paper to explain the obtaned results.