Finally the two texts concerned with solution of the Infinitesimal Hilbert problem, are put into the polished form (including the publisher’s LaTeX style files). The new revisions, already uploaded to ArXiv, differ from the initial submissions only by corrected typos, a few rearrangements aimed at improving the readability of the texts, and a couple of more references added. There is absolutely no need to read the new revision if you already have read the first one.
Mostly for the reasons of “internal convenience” the complete references are repoduced here:
- G. Binyamini and S. Yakovenko, Polynomial Bounds for Oscillation of Solutions of Fuchsian Systems, posted as arXiv:0808.2950v2 [math.DS], 36 p.p., submitted to Ann. Inst. Fourier (Dec. 2008), accepted (February, 2009)
- G. Binyamini, D. Novikov and S. Yakovenko, On the Number of Zeros of Abelian Integrals: A Constructive Solution of the Infinitesimal Hilbert Sixteenth Problem, posted as arXiv:0808.2952v2 [math.DS], 57 p.p., submitted to Inventiones Mathematicae (Nov. 2008).
The number of limit cycles that can be born from periodic solutions of a polynomial Hamiltonian planar system 
by a small polynomial perturbation
not increasing the degree 
, is explicitly bounded by a double exponent 
, where 
is an explicit polynomial in 
of degree not exceeding 60 (fine tuning of the proof gives a better value around 5 or so, which hypothetically could be reduced to just 2). For hyperelliptic Hamiltonians of the form 
the bound can be improved to 
with an explicit constant in the term 
. This assertion constitutes an explicit constructive solution of the so called “Infinitesimal” Hilbert 16th Problem which first implicitly appeared in the works of Petrovskii and Landis in the 1950-s. Since mid-1960-s the problem was repeatedly formulated in many sources (starting with Arnold’s problems and as recently as in Ilyashenko’s 2008 list) as the natural step towards a still evasive solution of the complete Hilbert 16th Problem.
“J’ai Nous (i.e., Gal Binyamini, Dmitry Novikov et moi-même) avons trouvé une merveilleuse démonstration de cette proposition, mais je ne peux l’écrire dans cette marge car elle est trop longue.”
La démonstration is indeed a bit too long to be reproduced here: the complete exposition is available on arXiv (50+ pages) and strongly uses another paper of 30+ pages which establishes non-uniform explicit double exponential upper bound on the number of isolated complex zeros of functions satisfying linear systems of Fuchsian differential equations, provided that all residue matrices have only real eigenvalues.
Our proof is based solely on the fact that Abelian integrals of polynomial 1-forms along cycles on complexified level curves of the Hamiltonian, satisfy an integrable system of regular Pfaffian differential equations defined over 
with quasiunipotent monodromy along all small loops.
Bookmark this page, as it will display the most up-to-date version of the text of both papers. Any comments, suggestions and spotted typos will be accepted with warmest gratitude.
Topological properties of Abelian integrals
The second “learning in groups” meeting will be devoted to the study of the Gauss–Manin connexion in homology, which will ultimately result in a local representation of Abelian integrals as linear combinations of real powers and logarithms with analytic coefficients analytically depending on parameters.
This representation already suffices to produce local uniform bounds for the number of isolated zeros, as was explained on the previous Tuesday.
Recommended reading: Section 26 from the book (printing disabled), esp., subsections F and I-K.
Time and location: Tuesday Dec. 18, 2007, 14:00 (in place of the usual Geometry & Topology seminar time), Pekeris Room.
What it will be about: 
We (D. Novikov and S.Y.) launch a campaign “Learn Khovanskii–Varchenko Theorem“. A few (2-4) next weeks we will discuss in detail the proof of this remarkably simple but powerful result with a view to have a number of generalizations.
The two manuscripts (one in Russian, another in English) are available:
Time and location: Tuesdays, 16:00-18:00, Room 261 (unless otherwise announced).
The first meeting: Dec 11, 2007.
Fewnomial theory (S.Y.). This purely geometric theory starts with a multidimensional generalization of the Rolle theorem for several variables and allows to prove infinitely many both classical and new results starting from the Descartes’ rule.
If somebody has a scanned copy of the English original by Khovanskii, please post a link in comments.
