Integrable systems via polynomial inverse integrating factors (Q698171)

The authors study the center problem for planar ordinary differential equations of the form \[ x'=-y+X_s(x,y),\qquad y'=x+Y_s(x,y), \] where \(X_s\) and \(Y_s\) are homogeneous polynomials of degree \(s.\) These systems write in polar coordinates as \(r'=P_s(\varphi)r^s,\) \(\varphi'=1+Q_s(\varphi)r^{s-1}\), where \[ \begin{aligned} P_s(\varphi)&= R_{s+1}\cos((s+1)\varphi+\varphi_{s+1})+ R_{s-1}\cos((s-1)\varphi+ \varphi_{s-1})+\cdots,\\ Q_s(\varphi)&= \overline R_{s+1}\sin((s+1)\varphi+ \overline\varphi_{s+1})+ \overline R_{s-1}\sin((s-1)\varphi+ \overline\varphi_{s-1})+\cdots,\end{aligned} \] and \(R_i, \overline R_i, \varphi_i\) and \(\overline\varphi_i\) are real parameters. In the first part of the paper, the authors find a formal first integral to the system by searching a polynomial function \(V\) such that \(V^{-1}\) is an integrating function for it. The second part deals with the case \(s=4.\) In fact, the method developed in the paper allows one to find the following family of centers \[ x'=y(-a+2x^3), \quad y'= x(-2-a-(2+a)x^3-(3a+6)x^2y-3axy^2+(2-a)y^3), \] with \(-2<a<0.\) It is worth to say that, until this paper was written, all known examples of centers for the family with homogeneous nonlinearities had a fixed structure, namely, center conditions just involving on one side relations among \(R_i\) and \(\overline R_j\) and on the other side, relations among \(\varphi_i\) and \(\overline\varphi_j.\) The importance of the one-parametric family of centers given above is that it does not possesses this structure and hence shows how difficult the solution of the center problem can be, even for systems with homogeneous nonlinearities.