Prevalent dynamics at the first bifurcation of Hénon-like families (Q420997)

Transitions from structurally stable to unstable regimes and formation of strange attractors continue to be consistently fruitful area of study in dynamics. The Hénon map \[ H(x,y)= (1- ax^2+ \sqrt{b}y,\pm \sqrt{b}x)\quad\text{with }0< b<< 1 \] is a prototypical example. When \(a\) is large we get a structurally stable chaotic system with a uniformly hyperbolic horseshoe. As a decreases, there is a bifurcation parameter at which the horsesshoe loses stability and a non-uniformly hyperbolic attractor arises. The author of this paper studies the transition from horseshoes to strange attractors for strongle dissipative Hénon-like families. A Hénon-like family is a family \(f_a\) of diffeomorphisms of \(\mathbb{R}^2\), \[ f_a(x,y)= (1- ax^2,0)+ b\Phi(a,b,x,y), \] where \((a,b)\) is close to \((2,0)\) and \(\Phi\) is bounded, continuous and \(C^4\) in \(a\), \(x\) and \(y\). There is a first bifurcation parameter \(a^*\) where uniform hyperbolicity is lost because tangencies form inside the limit set. The author's main result is that \(a^*\) is a full Lebesgue density point of the set of parameters for which almost every initial point (w.r.t Lebesgue measure) diverges to infinity under positive iteration. In addition, the author shows that every critical point of \(f_{a^*}\) is non-recurrent.