BIRTH OF CANARD CYCLES

In this paper we consider singular perturbation problems occuring in planar slow-fast systems ((x) over dot = y - F(x, lambda), (y) over dot = -epsilon G(x, lambda)) where F and are smooth or even real analytic for some results, A is a multiparameter and epsilon is a small parameter. We deal with turning points that are limiting situations of (generalized) Hopf bifurcations and that we call slow-fast Hopf points. We investigate the number of limit cycles that can appear near a slow-fast Hopf point and this under very general conditions. One of the results states that for any analytic family of planar systems, depending on a finite number of parameters, there is a finite upperbound for the number of limit cycles that can bifurcate from a slow-fast Hopf point. The most difficult problem to deal with concerns the uniform treatment of the evolution that a limit cycle undergoes when it grows from a small limit cycle near the singular point to a canard cycle of detectable size. This explains the title of the paper. The treatment, is based on blow-up, good normal forms and appropriate Chebyshev systems. In the paper we also relate the slow-divergence integral as it is used in singular perturbation theory to Abelian integrals that have to be used in studying limit cycles close to the singular point.