Integral characterization for Poincar\'e half-maps in planar linear systems

The intrinsic nature of a problem usually suggests a first suitable method to deal with it. Unfortunately, the apparent ease of application of these initial approaches may make their possible flaws seem to be inherent to the problem and often no alternative ways to solve it are searched for. For instance, since linear systems of differential equations are easy to integrate, Poincar\'e half-maps for piecewise linear systems are always studied by using the direct integration of the system in each zone of linearity. However, this approach is accompanied by two important defects: due to the different spectra of the involved matrices, many cases and strategies must be considered and, since the flight time appears as a new variable, nonlinear complicated equations arise. This manuscript is devoted to present a novel theory to characterize Poincar\'e half-maps in planar linear systems that avoids the computation of their solutions and the problems it causes. This new perspective rests on the use of line integrals of a specific conservative vector field which is orthogonal to the flow of the linear system. Besides the obvious mathematical interest, this approach is attractive because it allows to simplify the study of piecewise-linear systems and deal with open problems in this field.