Orbital and escape dynamics in barred galaxies -- IV. Heteroclinic connections

Abstract

Continuing the series of papers on a new model for a barred galaxy, we investigate the heteroclinic connections between the two normally hyperbolic invariant manifolds sitting over the two index-1 saddle points of the effective potential. The heteroclinic trajectories and the nearby periodic orbits of similar shape populate the bar region of the galaxy and a neighbourhood of its nucleus. Thereby we see a direct relation between the important structures of the interior region of the galaxy and the projection of the heteroclinic tangle into the position space. As a side result, we obtain a detailed picture of the primary heteroclinic intersection surface in the phase space.