Research Article
A New Method for Research on the Center-Focus Problem of
Differential Systems
Zhengxin Zhou
School of Mathematical Sciences, Yangzhou University, Yangzhou 225002, China
Correspondence should be addressed to Zhengxin Zhou; zxzhou@yzu.edu.cn
Received 13 December 2013; Accepted 17 February 2014; Published 20 March 2014
Academic Editor: Douglas R. Anderson
Copyright © 2014 Zhengxin Zhou. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License,
which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
We will introduce Mironenko’s method to discuss the Poincar
´
e center-focus problem, and compare the methods of Lyapunov and
Mironenko. We apply the Mironenko method to discuss the qualitative behavior of solutions of some planar polynomial dierential
systems and derive the sucient conditions for a critical point to be a center.
1. Introduction
As we know [1, 2], for polynomial dierential system
=−+
𝑛
𝑖+𝑗=2
𝑖𝑗
𝑖
𝑗
,
=+
𝑛
𝑖+𝑗=2
𝑖𝑗
𝑖
𝑗
,
(1)
where
𝑖𝑗
and
𝑖𝑗
are real constants, there has been a long-
standing problem, called the Poincar
´
e center-focus problem;
for the system (1) nd explicit conditions of
𝑖𝑗
and
𝑖𝑗
under
which (1)hasacenterattheorigin(0,0);thatis,alltheorbits
nearbyareclosed.eproblemisequivalenttoananalogue
for a corresponding periodic equation
=
∑
𝑛−2
𝑖=0
𝑖
(
)
𝑖
1+
∑
𝑛−1
𝑖=0
𝑖
(
)
𝑖
2
=
(
,
)
(2)
to have periodic solutions. To see this let us note that the
phase curves of (1) near the origin (0,0)in polar coordinates
=cos , =sin are determined by (2), where
𝑖
()
and
𝑖
()are polynomials in cos and sin .
Since the closed orbits of (1) correspond to 2-periodic
solutions of (2), the planar vector eld (1) has a center at (0, 0)
if and only if (2)hasacenterat=0;thatis,allthesolutions
nearby =0are periodic: (0)=(2)[1, 2].
To discuss the center-focus problem, there are Lyapunov’s
method and the others; see the works of Z. Zhang and so
forth [2–8]. One of the most commonly used methods is
Lyapunov’s method. However, sometimes, the use of this
method to calculate the focus quantities is very dicult and
the amount of calculation is very large.
In this paper, we apply the method of Mironenko [9]
(reecting function method) to study the qualitative behavior
of solutions of (2) and give the sucient conditions for =
0 to be a center. We give a few examples to illustrate that,
sometimes, Mironenko’s method is better than Lyapunov’s
method.
In the present section, we introduce the concept of the
reecting function, which will be used throughout the rest of
this paper.
Consider dierential system
=
(
,
)
,∈,∈
𝑛
,
(3)
which has a continuously dierentiable right-hand side and
with a general solution (;
0
,
0
). For each such system,
the reecting function is dened (see Mironenko’s [9]) as
(,) := (−,,). erefore, for any solution ()of (3),
we have (,())=(−), (0,)=.
If system (3)is2-periodic with respect to ,and(,)
is its reecting function, then ():=(−,)=(;−,)
is the Poincar
´
emappingof(3)overtheperiod[−,].us,
the solution =(;−,
0
)of (3) dened on [−,]is 2-
periodic if and only if
0
is a xed point of ().estability
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Abstract and Applied Analysis
Volume 2014, Article ID 926538, 5 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/926538