The explosion of singular hyperbolic attractors

Abstract

A {\em singular hyperbolic attractor} for flows is a partially hyperbolic attractor with singularities (hyperbolic ones) and volume expanding central direction \cite{mpp1}. The geometric Lorenz attractor \cite{gw} is an example of a singular hyperbolic attractor. In this paper we study the perturbations of singular hyperbolic attractors for three-dimensional flows. It is proved that any attractor obtained from such perturbations contains a singularity. So, there is an upper bound for the number of attractors obtained from such perturbations. Furthermore, every three-dimensional flow $C^r$ close to one exhibiting a singular hyperbolic attractor has a singularity non isolated in the non wandering set. We also give sufficient conditions for a singularity of a three-dimensional flow to be stably non isolated in the nonwandering set. These results generalize well known properties of the Lorenz attractor.