Limit Cycles of Planar Piecewise Smooth Quadratic Systems with Focus-Parabolic Type Critical Points

Abstract

It is very important to determine the maximum number of limit cycles of planar piecewise smooth quadratic systems and it has become a focal subject in recent years. Almost all of the previous studies on this problem focused on systems with focus–focus type critical points. In this paper, we consider planar piecewise smooth quadratic systems with focus-parabolic type critical points. By using the generalized polar coordinates to compute the corresponding Lyapunov constants, we construct a class of planar piecewise smooth quadratic systems with focus-parabolic type critical points having six limit cycles. Our results improve the results obtained by Coll, Gasull and Prohens in 2001, who constructed a class of such systems with four limit cycles.