Spiralling dynamics near heteroclinic networks

Abstract

There are few explicit examples in the literature of vector fields exhibiting complex dynamics that may be proved analytically. We construct explicitly a {two parameter family of vector fields} on the three-dimensional sphere $\EU^3$, whose flow has a spiralling attractor containing the following: two hyperbolic equilibria, heteroclinic trajectories connecting them {transversely} and a non-trivial hyperbolic, invariant and transitive set. The spiralling set unfolds a heteroclinic network between two symmetric saddle-foci and contains a sequence of topological horseshoes semiconjugate to full shifts over an alphabet with more and more symbols, {coexisting with Newhouse phenonema}. The vector field is the restriction to $\EU^3$ of a polynomial vector field in $\RR^4$. In this article, we also identify global bifurcations that induce chaotic dynamics of different types.