An estimate on the number of limit cycles via critical points of conditional extremum (Q1778247)

Consider the planar system \[ dx/dt = P(x,y), \qquad dy/dt = Q(x,y), \tag{1} \] where \(P\) and \(Q\) are polynomials of degree \(n\). The problem to estimate the maximal number of limit cycles of system (1) is still open. In previous papers, the author introduced the notion of generalized Dulac function in order to develop a new approach to solve the mentioned problem for some classes of polynomial systems (1). The construction of this function is related to the construction of some functional \(\Phi\) depending on the phase variables \(x,y\) and some additional variables \(c=(c_1,\dots ,c_m)\) such that \[ \max_{\| c\|=1} \min_{(x,y) \in G \subset \mathbb R^2} \Phi(x,y,c) >0. \] In case that \(G\) is bounded such functional exists. In the present paper, the author studies the case of an unbounded region and shows that in that case it is useful to reduce the max-min problem to the problem of finding critical points of a conditional extremum. Finally, the author demonstrates the effectiveness of this approach by considering a number of interesting examples.