Further considerations on the number of limit cycles of vector fields of the form \(X(v)=Av+f(v)Bv\) (Q579493)

Consider the vector fields of the form (1) \(X(v)=Av+f(v)Bv\) where A and B are \(2\times 2\) matrices, det \(A\neq 0\) and \(f: R^ 2\to R\) is a smooth real function such that \(f(\gamma \cos \theta,\gamma \sin \theta)=\gamma^ D\bar f(\theta)\) with \(D\geq 1\). Assume \((JB)_ s\) and \(B^ tJA)_ s\) are definite and have the same sign (for a matrix C let \(C^ t\) denote the transpose of C, \(C_ s=()(C+C^ t),\) and \(J=\left( \begin{matrix} 0\\ 1\end{matrix} \begin{matrix} -1\\ 0\end{matrix} \right))\), and f is indefinite, i.e., it takes both positive and negative values. Moreover, assume the origin is a node. Under these conditions, the authors prove: Theorem. The origin is the unique rest point, it is an attractor, infinity is a repeller, and (1) has at most two limit cycles. This improves an earlier theorem of the authors [ibid. 67, 90-110 (1987)], in which they assumed that (0,0) is a node with equal eigenvalues.