Hilbert's 16th problem through Morse theory

Abstract

We focus on the second part of Hilbert's 16th problem and provide an upper bound on the number of limit cycles that a polynomial, differential, planar system may have, depending exclusively on the degree $n$ of the system. Such a bound turns out to be a polynomial of degree $4$ in $n$. More specifically, if $H(n)$ indicates the maximum number of limit cycles among planar, differential, polynomial systems of degree $n$, then \begin{gather} H(n)\le \dfrac52 n^4-\dfrac{23}2 n^3+ \dfrac{43}2n^2-\dfrac{37}2n+7\,\,\,\, \mbox{if $n$ is even, and} \nonumber H(n)\le \dfrac52 n^4-\dfrac{23}2 n^3+ \dfrac{41}2n^2-\dfrac{33}2n+6\,\,\,\, \mbox{if $n$ is odd}.\nonumber \end{gather} For quadratic systems, we find $H(2)=4$. Our proof is entirely variational and utilizes in a fundamental way tools and facts from Morse theory, to the point that no particular expertise in dynamical systems is necessary or required. It is particularly interesting to compare our results with the ones for the same problem recently announced and made public by OpenAI as part of the solution of hundreds of important mathematical problems.