Limit cycles, invariant meridians and parallels for polynomial vector fields on the torus (Q627695)

The paper studies the polynomial vector fields \(X\) in \({\mathbb R}^3\) for which the 2-dimensional torus \[ \mathbb T^2=\{(x,y,z)\in\mathbb R^3: (x^2+y^2-a^2)^2+z^2=1\},\quad a>1, \] is invariant under their flows. In particular, the authors are interested in finding the possible configurations of invariant meridians and parallels that these vector fields can exhibit. Recall that the meridians and the parallels are the closed curves obtained by the intersection of \(\mathbb T^2\) with the planes containing the \(z\)-axis and the planes orthogonal to the \(z\)-axis, respectively. We say that \(X\) has configuration \((k,l)\) if it has exactly \(k\) invariant meridians and \(l\) invariant parallels. The main result is that, if \(X\) has degree \(m\) and finitely many invariant meridians and parallels, then the only possible configurations for \(X\) are \((k,l)\) with \(k=2k'\), where \(k'\in\{0,1,\dots,m-1\}\) and \(l\in\{0,1,\dots, 2(m-2)\}\), and all of them are realizable. Moreover, it is proved that, for all of the above values of \(k'\) and \(l\), there are polynomial systems of degree \(m\) having \(2k'\) limit cycles, given by the meridians with configuration \((2k',0)\), and \(l\) limit cycles, given by the parallels with configuration \((0,l)\).