Non-existence, existence, and uniqueness of limit cycles for a generalization of the van der Pol-Duffing and the Rayleigh-Duffing oscillators (Q2115551)

Consider the planar polynomial system \[ \frac{{dx}}{{dt}} = y, \quad \frac{{dy}}{{dt}} = -x -x^3-\varepsilon y(b+x^2+ay^2),\tag{1} \] where \( a, b, \varepsilon \) are real numbers satisfying \( a>0, \varepsilon>0 \). The authors prove that (1) has no limit cycle for \(b \ge 0 \) and a unique stable limit cycle for \(b<0\). Additionally they present the correponding global phase portraits in the Poincarè disk.