On the number of limit cycles near a homoclinic loop with a nilpotent cusp of order \(m\) (Q6140125)

The author studies the homoclinic bifurcation of the autonomous real planar polynomial system \[ \dot{x} = y, \quad \dot{y} = x^2(1-x) + \varepsilon \sum_{i=0}^{n} a_i x^i y,\tag{1} \] where \(x\) and \(y\) are real variables depending on a real independent variable, the dot denotes derivative with respect this independent variable, \(\varepsilon\) is a real parameter with \(0<|\varepsilon|<<1\), that is, it is the bifurcation parameter, \(n\) is a natural number with \(n \geq 0\) and \(a_i\), \(i=0,1,\ldots, n\), are real numbers. When \(\varepsilon =0\), this system has a cusp point at the origin with a cuspidal loop given by \(H=0\), and denoted as \(L_0\), with \[ H(x,y) = \frac{y^2}{2} - \frac{x^3}{3} + \frac{x^4}{4}. \] Note that \(H\) is the Hamiltonian function of the system with \(\varepsilon=0\). Note also that this system has a continuum of periodic orbits inside the cuspidal loop for \(h \in (0,-1/12)\) and we denote each of these periodic orbits as \(L_h^{-}\). Analogously, the system with \(\varepsilon=0\) has a continuum of periodic orbits outside the loop \(L_0\) for \(h>0\) and we denote these orbits by \(L_h^{+}\). The corresponding first order Melnikov functions are defined as \[ M^{\pm}(h;a_i) = \sum_{i=0}^{n} a_i \oint_{L_h^{\pm}} x^i y dx. \] The author studies the expansion of these Melnikov functions in neighborhood of \(h=0\) in order to establish the maximum number of hyperbolic zeroes of these functions, which provide limit cycles of system (1) when \(|\varepsilon|\) is small enough. The form of this expansion has been studied in previous papers and it is given by fractional powers of \(h\). In this paper this expansion is computed thoroughly. The main result of the author is that if \(n \equiv 3\) modulus \(4\), then \(n + \left[ \frac{n}{4} \right]\) limit cycles can appear in a neighborhood of the cuspidal loop and if \(n \equiv 0, 1, 2\) modulus \(4\) then \(n + \left[ \frac{n+2}{4} \right]\) limit cycles can appear in a neighborhood of the cuspidal loop. These bounds improve some bounds given in the literature.