Limit cycles near generalized homoclinic and double homoclinic loops in piecewise smooth systems (Q2393264)

The authors study bifurcations of limit cycles in piecewise smooth near-Hamiltonian systems. It is assumed that the unperturbed system has a generalized homoclinic or double homoclinic loop. The authors find the form of the expansion of the first Melnikov function. Then, using initial coefficients of the expansion, some new results on the number of limit cycles bifurcating from a periodic annulus near the generalized homoclinic loop are derived. As an application of the general result, a special case when the system is central symmetric is considered as well.