LOWER BOUNDS FOR THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF LIMIT CYCLES OF DISCONTINUOUS PIECEWISE LINEAR DIFFERENTIAL SYSTEMS WITH A STRAIGHT LINE OF SEPARATION

Abstract

In this paper, we provide a lower bound for the maximum number of limit cycles of planar discontinuous piecewise linear differential systems defined in two half-planes separated by a straight line. Here, we only consider nonsliding limit cycles. For those systems, the interior of any limit cycle only contains a unique equilibrium point or a unique sliding segment. Moreover, the linear differential systems that we consider in every half-plane can have either a focus (F), or a node (N), or a saddle (S), these equilibrium points can be real or virtual. Then, we can consider six kinds of planar discontinuous piecewise linear differential systems: FF, FN, FS, NN, NS, SS. We provide for each of these types of discontinuous differential systems examples with two limit cycles.