Limit Cycles Near a Piecewise Smooth Generalized Homoclinic Loop with a Nonelementary Singular Point

Abstract

In this paper, we deal with limit cycle bifurcations by perturbing a piecewise smooth Hamiltonian system with a generalized homoclinic loop passing through a nonelementary singular point. We first give an expansion of the first Melnikov function corresponding to a period annulus near the generalized homoclinic loop. Then, based on the first coefficients in the expansion we obtain a lower bound for the maximal number of limit cycles bifurcated from the period annulus. As applications, two concrete systems are considered.