Critical periods in planar polynomial centers near a maximum number of cusps (Q6140126)

The authors provide a new lower bound for the number of critical periods of planar polynomial Hamiltonian systems in a single period annulus by constructing the maximum number of cusps and using the catastrophe theory. This lower bound doubles the result of \textit{X. Cen} [J. Differ. Equations 271, 480--498 (2021; Zbl 1462.34067)], and shows that there are at least \(n^2-2\) (resp. \(n^2-2n-1\)) critical periods for planar polynomial systems of odd (resp. even) degree \(n\). This is the best lower bound up to now. Moreover, the method using for the proof of the result on the even degree is different from that of Cen [loc. cit.]. It is a very interesting result.