On the cyclicity of Kolmogorov polycycles

Abstract

In this paper we study planar polynomial Kolmogorov's differential systems \[ X_\mu\quad\sist{xf(x,y;\mu),}{yg(x,y;\mu),} \] with the parameter $\mu$ varying in an open subset $\Lambda\subset\R^N$. Compactifying $X_\mu$ to the Poincar\'e disc, the boundary of the first quadrant is an invariant triangle $\Gamma$, that we assume to be a hyperbolic polycycle with exactly three saddle points at its vertices for all $\mu\in\Lambda.$ We are interested in the cyclicity of $\Gamma$ inside the family $\{X_\mu\}_{\mu\in\Lambda},$ i.e., the number of limit cycles that bifurcate from $\Gamma$ as we perturb $\mu.$ In our main result we define three functions that play the same role for the cyclicity of the polycycle as the first three Lyapunov quantities for the cyclicity of a focus. As an application we study two cubic Kolmogorov families, with $N=3$ and $N=5$, and in both cases we are able to determine the cyclicity of the polycycle for all $\mu\in\Lambda,$ including those parameters for which the return map along $\Gamma$ is the identity.