Bifurcations of limit cycles in a Z 4-equivariant quintic planar vector field

Abstract

In this paper, a Z 4-equivariant quintic planar vector field is studied. The Hopf bifurcation method and polycycle bifurcation method are combined to study the limit cycles bifurcated from the compounded cycle with 4 hyperbolic saddle points. It is found that this special quintic planar polynomial system has at least four large limit cycles which surround all singular points. By applying the double homoclinic loops bifurcation method and Hopf bifurcation method, we conclude that 28 limit cycles with two different configurations exist in this special planar polynomial system. The results acquired in this paper are useful for studying the weakened 16th Hilbert’s Problem.