Classification of quadratic systems admitting the existence of an algebraic limit cycle (Q996969)

Nowadays people know the existence of seven different families of quadratic systems having algebraic limit cycles. These limit cycles are real ovals of irreducible invariant algebraic curves of degree \(n,\) with \(n\) being 2, 4, 5 or 6. Recall that given a polynomial \(F(x,y)\) it is said that the curve \(F(x,y)=0\) is invariant for the quadratic system \(\dot x=P(x,y),\) \(\dot y= Q(x,y)\) if there exists a degree 1 polynomial \(K(x,y)\) such that \(P(x,y)\partial F(x,y)/\partial x+ Q(x,y)\partial F(x,y)/\partial y= K(x,y)F(x,y).\) The polynomial \(K\) is called the cofactor of the curve \(F=0.\) The main aims of this paper are: (i) Find necessary conditions for a quadratic system to have an algebraic limit cycle; (ii) Give a classification of all the quadratic systems that can have algebraic limit cycles. About the first problem, the authors are able to give a countable number of families, each one of them having at most 5 free parameters, such that each quadratic system having an algebraic limit cycle can be included, after a change of variables, into some of them. With respect to the second one, the proposed classification takes into account the number of critical points of the system on the cofactor of \(F,\) as well as the intersection multiplicities of \(F=0\) with the critical points of the quadratic system at infinity. The paper ends with several conjectures and one open question. Two of the conjectures are: (a) All the quadratic systems having an algebraic limit cycles form (up to an affine change of coordinates and a linear change of time) a countable union of 2,1 and 0 parameter families. (b) Any quadratic system has at most one algebraic limit cycle. The question is: For which natural numbers \(n\) there exists a quadratic system with an algebraic limit cycle of degree equal to \(n\)?