Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2008/ii/paper-3/14a/solution

For a positively oriented simple closed curve on which the vector field is nonzero, its Poincaré index is the total rotation of the vector field along that curve divided by , equivalently the winding number of its normalized direction. The Poincaré index of an isolated fixed point is that of a sufficiently small enclosing curve containing no other fixed point. The index of a planar periodic orbit is .

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