Abelian integrals and limit cycles

The paper deals with generic perturbations from a Hamiltonian planar vector field and more precisely with the number and bifurcation pattern of the limit cycles. In this paper we show that near a 2-saddle cycle, the number of limit cycles produced in unfoldings with one unbroken connection, can exceed the number of zeros of the related Abelian integral, even if the latter represents a stable elementary catastrophe. We however also show that in general, finite codimension of the Abelian integral leads to a finite upper bound on the local cyclicity. In the treatment, we introduce the notion of simple asymptotic scale deformation. (c) 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.