ON THE NUMBER OF SLOPES OF INVARIANT
STRAIGHT LINES FOR POLYNOMIAL
DIFFERENTIAL SYSTEMS

JOAN C. ARTÉS AND JAUME LLIBRE


Abstract


If $P$ and $Q$ are two real polynomials in the real variables $x$ and $y$ such that the degree of $P^2+Q^2$ is $2n$, then we say that the polynomial differential system $x' = P(x,y)$, $y' = Q(x,y)$ has degree $n$. In the set of all polynomial differential systems of degree $n>1$ having finitely many invariant straight lines, let $\alpha(n)$ be the maximum number of invariant straight lines that they have, and let $\beta(n)$ be the maximum number of slopes that these invariant straight lines have. Dai Guoren conjectured that $\beta(n)=2n+(1+(-1)^n)/2$ for $n>2$. In this paper we prove that the conjecture is true for $n=3,4,5$, and that it is not true for $n=6,7,\ldots,21$. Moreover, we prove that $\beta(n)= \alpha(n-1)+1$ and then we refer to \cite {AGL} where $\alpha(n)$ is studied.}