Homoclinic and Heteroclinic Bifurcations Close to a Twisted Heteroclinic Cycle

Abstract:
We study the interaction of a transcritical (or saddle-node) bifurcation with a codimension-0/codimension-2 heteroclinic cycle close to (but away from) the local bifurcation point. The study is motivated by numerical observations on the traveling wave ODE of a reaction–diffusion equation. The manifold organization is such that two branches of homoclinic orbits to each fixed point are created when varying the two parameters controlling the codimension-2 loop. It is shown that the homoclinic orbits may become degenerate in an orbit-flip bifurcation. We establish the occurrence of multi-loop homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits in this system. The double-loop homoclinic orbits are shown to bifurcate in an inclination-flip bifurcation, where a Smale's horseshoe is found.