Local and global analysis of the displacement map for some near integrable systems

In this paper, we introduce an alternative method for applying averaging theory of orders 1 and 2 in the plane. This is done by combining Taylor expansions of the displacement map with the integral form of the Poincaré–Poyntriagin–Melnikov function. It is known that, to obtain results of order 2 with averaging theory, the first-order averaging function should be identically zero. However, when working with Taylor expansions of the $i$th-order averaging function, we usually cannot guarantee it is identically zero. We prove that the vanishing of certain coefficients of the Taylor series of the first-order averaging function ensures it is identically zero. We present our reasoning in several concrete examples: a quadratic Lotka–Volterra system, a quadratic Hamiltonian system, the entire family of quadratic isochronous differential systems, and a cubic system. For the latter, we also show that a previous analysis contained in the literature is not correct. In none of the examples is it necessary to precisely calculate the averaging functions.