The Extended 16th Hilbert Problem for Discontinuous Piecewise Linear Centers Separated by a Nonregular Line

Abstract

The study of the piecewise linear differential systems goes back to Andronov, Vitt and Khaikin in 1920’s, and nowadays such systems still continue to receive the attention of many researchers mainly due to their applications. We study the discontinuous piecewise differential systems formed by two linear centers separated by a nonregular straight line. We provide upper bounds for the maximum number of limit cycles that these discontinuous piecewise differential systems can exhibit and we show that these upper bounds are reached. Hence, we solve the extended 16th Hilbert problem for this class of piecewise differential systems.