Isochronicity via normal form (Q5951660)

This paper presents the so-called isochronicity problem: determine the conditions under which a critical point of a smooth planar differential equation with pure imaginary eigenvalues is of center type and has all its closed orbits with the same period. In the first part of the paper, the authors develop a procedure to arrive to the usual normal form by giving the normalizing change of variables as the time 1 flow of another planar vector field. This normal form allows one to compute conditions for the isochronicity. The second part is devoted to prove the following criteria: Consider a planar real system \((x',y')=(X(x,y)),\) where \(X\) is smooth and \( X(x,y)=(-y+O(2), x+O(2)),\) then: (i) The origin is an isochronous center if and only if there exists another smooth planar vector field \(U(x,y),\) which vanishes at (0,0), has linear part \((x,y)\) and satisfies \([X,U]=0,\) where \([ , ]\) denotes the Lie bracket. (ii) The origin of \(X\) is a center if and only if there exist a real-valued smooth function \(\mu(x,y)\) and another vector field \(U\) satisfying the same properties that in (i) but \([X,U]=\mu X.\) The first result has also been proved by Mazzi and Sabatini. Finally, the above results are applied to study the isochronous centers in two families of planar vector fields: a subfamily of the so-called rigid systems, which are the systems that written in polar coordinates satisfy \(\theta'\equiv 1,\) and the Liénard systems \(x'=-y-f(x),\) \(y'=x+g(x)\), where \(f\) and \(g\) are smooth and satisfy \(f(0)=f'(0)=g(0)=g'(0)=0.\) In particular the following family of Liénard isochronous centers is known: \(f(x)\) is an even function and \(g(x)=x^{-3}\left(\int_0^x f(t)dt-xf(x)\right)^2.\) The authors conjecture that the above family is the only one with \(f\) and \(g\) polynomial. Their conjecture is proved in some particular cases. There is one figure missing in the paper that has appeared as Erratum in Qual. Theory Dyn. Syst. 2, 205 (2001).