Bifurcation theory for finitely smooth planar autonomous differential systems (Q1688674)

The authors investigate the bifurcation of limit cycles at Hopf bifurcation points of finitely smooth perturbed Hamiltonian systems. In order to determine the number of limit cycles they calculate the power series expansion for the Melnikov function and the so-called bifurcation function, for which they prove a recursive formula. Since the vector field is only \(C^k\), the smoothness of the Melnikov and bifurcation function has to be established very carefully. Finally the authors show by an example, that these regularity estimates are sharp.