Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 October 2017
In this paper we show that the well-known Poincaré–Lyapunov non-degenerate analytic centre problem in the plane and its higher-dimensional version, expressed as the three-dimensional centre problem at the zero-Hopf singularity, have a lot of common properties. In both cases the existence of a neighbourhood of the singularity in the phase space completely foliated by periodic orbits (including equilibria) is characterized by the fact that the system is analytically completely integrable. Hence its Poincaré–Dulac normal form is analytically orbitally linearizable. There also exists an analytic Poincaré return map and, when the system is polynomial and parametrized by its coefficients, the set of systems with centres corresponds to an affine variety in the parameter space of coefficients. Some quadratic polynomial families are considered.