Tightening Poincaré–Bendixson theory after counting separately the fixed points on the boundary and interior of a planar region

Abstract

This paper tightens the classical Poincaré–Bendixson theory for a positively invariant, simply-connected compact set $\mathcal M$ in a continuously differentiable planar vector field by further characterizing for any point $p\in \mathcal M$, the composition of the limit sets $\omega (p)$ and $\alpha(p)$ after counting separately the fixed points on $\mathcal M$'s boundary and interior. In particular, when $\mathcal M$ contains finitely many boundary but no interior fixed points, $\omega (p)$ contains only a single fixed point, and when $\mathcal M$ may have infinitely many boundary but no interior fixed points, $\omega (p)$ can, in addition, be a continuum of fixed points. When $\mathcal M$ contains only one interior and finitely many boundary fixed points, $\omega (p)$ or $\alpha (p)$ contains exclusively a fixed point, a closed orbit or the union of the interior fixed point and homoclinic orbits joining it to itself. When $\mathcal M$ contains in general a finite number of fixed points and neither $\omega (p)$ nor $\alpha (p)$ is a closed orbit or contains just a fixed point, at least one of $\omega (p)$ and $\alpha (p)$ excludes all boundary fixed points and consists only of a number of the interior fixed points and orbits connecting them.

Keywords

• poincaré–bendixson theory
• planar vector field
• limit set