Cyclicity of a fake saddle inside the quadratic vector fields (Q2514027)

This paper is devoted to an examination of bifurcations of an isolated singularity at the origin of a smooth vector field or system of ordinary differential equations \(X\) on the plane whose phase portrait contains a smooth invariant curve \(x = \varphi(y)\) through the origin along which \(X\) reduces to \(\dot y = c y^2 + O(y^3)\), \(c > 0\), and furthermore for which the origin has exactly two hyperbolic sectors with no elliptic portion and no parabolic or elliptic sectors. A typical example is the singularity at the origin of \(\dot x = 0\), \(\dot y = x^2 + y^2\). The primary aim is the study of the appearance of small amplitude limit cycles. Restricting to quadratic families, the authors show that a variety of bifurcation phenomena are involved and demonstrate the presence of up to two small limit cycles.