HOPF BIFURCATIONS FOR NEAR-HAMILTONIAN SYSTEMS

Abstract

In this paper, we consider bifurcation of limit cycles in near-Hamiltonian systems. A new method is developed to study the analytical property of the Melnikov function near the origin for such systems. Based on the new method, a computationally efficient algorithm is established to systematically compute the coefficients of Melnikov function. Moreover, we consider the case that the Hamiltonian function of the system depends on parameters, in addition to the coefficients involved in perturbations, which generates more limit cycles in the neighborhood of the origin. The results are applied to a quadratic system with cubic perturbations to show that the system can have five limit cycles in the vicinity of the origin.