On the Poincaré-Bendixson formula for planar piecewise smooth vector fields (Q6057190)

Consider the following planar piecewise smooth system \begin{eqnarray*} & & \dot{x}=P^{\pm}(x, y), \quad \dot{y}=Q^{\pm}(x, y),\quad \mbox{for } (x, y)\in \Sigma^{\pm}, \end{eqnarray*} where the whole plane \(\mathbb{R}^2\) is split into two open zones \(\Sigma^{\pm}=\{(x, y)\in \mathbb{R}^2: \pm h(x, y)>0\}\) by the discontinuity boundary \(\Sigma=h^{-1}(0)\), which is an one-dimensional smooth manifold and \(h\) has \(0\) as a regular value, the functions \(P^{\pm}(x, y)\) and \(Q^{\pm}(x, y)\) are \(C^r\) for \(r\geq 1\) in \(\overline{\Sigma^{\pm}}\), the closure of \(\Sigma^{\pm}\). The Filippov's convention is assumed for the solutions of the system on \(\Sigma\). In this paper, the authors first introduce the concepts of \(\Sigma\)-regular points and \(\Sigma\)-equilibrium points for the system. Then they extend the notions of attracting parabolic sector, repelling parabolic sector, elliptic sector and hyperbolic sector for smooth systems to piecewise smooth systems. Finally, they extend the Poincaré-Bendixson formula for computing the topological index of an equilibrium point of a smooth vector field to be applicable to an isolated \(\Sigma\)-equilibrium point of the above system. Applying this formula, they provide the index of generic codimension-0 and codimension-1 equilibrium points for piecewise smooth vector fields.