On the number of limit cycles in general planar piecewise linear systems of node-node types (Q2019063)

The authors consider the planar piecewise linear system \[ \begin{aligned} \dot{x}&=T^{+}x-y+b,\,\,\dot{y}=D^{+}x-a^{+} \text{ for } x>0\\ \dot{x}&=T^{-}-y,\,\,\dot{y}=D^{-}x-a^{-} \text{ for } x<0. \end{aligned} \] It is assumed that \(T^{2}>4D>0\). This condition implies that the linear parts have two distinct eigenvalues of the same sign. Several conditions on the coefficients are given that control the number and stability of periodic solutions. In particular, it is shown that the system could have two limit cycles. The method of proof is by introducing an auxiliary function to construct the Poincaré map. The results are applied to Morris Lecar neural models.