The limit cycles of Liénard equations in the strongly nonlinear regime (Q1573913)

This paper deals with Liénard differential equations of the form \[ y(x)y'(x)+\varepsilon f(x)y(x)+x=0, \] where \(f(x)\) is a continuous even function, and \(\varepsilon\) is big enough (strong nonlinear regime). By making the rescaling \(z=y/\varepsilon,\) the above equation writes as \[ z(x)(z'(x)+f(x))=-x/\varepsilon^2. \] At this point the authors affirm that the big amplitude limit cycles of this last equation can be thought as glued pieces of curves of the form \(z=0\) and \(z=-\int_0^xf(s)ds+k,\) for some constant values \(k.\) This affirmation is based on some heuristic arguments and on the numerical study of some particular cases. By using this approach, they argue that when \(f\) is polynomial of degree \(2n\) and \(\varepsilon\) is big enough, the maximum number of big amplitude (stable or unstable) limit cycles for the Liénard equation is \(n.\) This result is coherent with a well-known conjecture of \textit{A. Lins, W. de Melo} and \textit{C. C. Pugh} [Geom. Topol., III. Lat. Am. Sch. Math., Proc., Rio de Janeiro 1976, Lect. Notes Math. 597, 335-357 (1977; Zbl 0362.34022)].