Necessary and sufficient conditions for finite time singularities in ordinary differential equations (Q1975461)

The system of ordinary differential equations of the form \[ dx/dt= f(x)\tag{1} \] is investigated. Here, \(x\in \mathbb{R}^n\) and \(f_i\), \(i= 1,\dots, n\), are polynomial functions of \(x\) with real coefficients. A theorem is proved which provides necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a real finite value of the variable \(t\) at which the general solution to (1) diverges to infinity. Those conditions involve the asymptotic form of the local series representation for general solutions around the singularities and can be checked algorithmically.