Border-collision bifurcations including ``period two to period three'' for piecewise smooth systems (Q1197486)

The authors study continuous maps of the plane to itself that are differentiable on either side of a smooth curve \(\Gamma\). In a one- parameter family of such maps, a fixed point may cross \(\Gamma\) and change type drastically. If the orbit index [\textit{J. Mallet-Paret} and the second author, J. Differ. Equations 43, 419-450 (1982; Zbl 0487.34038)] of the fixed point changes, then there must be at least one additional periodic orbit nearby. The authors concentrate on the case in which a ``flip saddle'' (eigenvalues \(\lambda < -1 < v < 1\)) changes to a repeller with complex eigenvalues. They present numerical results illustrating a variety of interesting phenomena in this case. For example, a period \(p\) attractor near the flip saddle can shrink to the fixed point and reappear as a period \(q\) attractor near the repeller, for a wide variety of \(p\) and \(q\). Similarly, a period \(p\) attractor or a \(p\)-piece chaotic attractor can shrink and reappear as a \(q\)-piece chaotic attractor. One example indicates a bifurcation of chaotic invariant sets of saddle type. Most of these phenomena are illustrated for continuous maps that are linear on either side of the \(y\)-axis. The authors also give a proof that the bifurcation of a period 2 to a period 3 attractor occurs in certain families of piecewise linear maps.