AbstractIn this article we determine the global geometry of the planar quadratic differential systems with a weak focus of third order. This class plays a significant role in the context of Hilbert's 16-th problem. Indeed, all examples of quadratic differential systems with at least four limit cycles, were obtained by perturbing a system in this family. We use the algebro-geometric concepts of divisor and zero-cycle to encode global properties of the systems and to give structure to this class. We give a theorem of topological classification of such systems in terms of integer-valued affine invariants. According to the possible values taken by them in this family we obtain a total of 18 topologically distinct phase portraits. We show that inside the class of all quadratic systems with the topology of the coefficients, there exists a neighborhood of the family of quadratic systems with a weak focus of third order and which may have graphics but no polycycle in the sense of [15] and no limit cycle, such that any quadratic system in this neighborhood has at most four limit cycles.
Geometrical and topological investigation of some families of quadratic differential systems possessing saddle-nodes or invariant ellipses