A Melnikov method for homoclinic orbits with many pulses (Q1271793)

The authors study the persistence of homoclinic orbits with many pulses for hyperbolic periodic orbits to a system being a perturbation of a four-dimensional integrable Hamiltonian system. The unperturbed system is supposed to have a one-parameter family of hyperbolic periodic orbits, such that stable and unstable manifolds of each periodic orbit coincide. When a perturbation is imposed, the family of periodic orbits persists, due to its hyperbolicity, but stable and unstable manifolds may split. If the perturbation imposed is Hamiltonian, then every perturbed periodic orbit belongs to its own level of the Hamiltonian, and so, one gets the usual problem of finding zeros of the Melnikov function in order to find transverse homoclinic orbits to some specific periodic orbit that make only one round along some unperturbed homoclinic orbit [see, for instance, \textit{C. Robinson}, Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 8, 395-409 (1988; Zbl 0666.58039)]. In these cases the existence of multi-pulse homoclinic orbits is a corollary of the general theory. To find a homoclinic orbit to a specific periodic orbit for a general (non-Hamiltonian) perturbation the problem is more complicated, as periodic orbits fail to be hyperbolic, nevertheless, the Melnikov formula or its modifications can be used. The authors derive a formula that allows one to search for multi-pulse homoclinic orbits to these periodic orbits. After that, they extend this tool to the case of searching for heteroclinic orbits to periodic orbits located on different cylinders filled with periodic orbits. The authors apply their results to a reinterpretation of results of the first author [Physica D 84, 357-397 (1995; Zbl 0889.34042)], and to the problem of the existence of homoclinic orbits to resonance bands (when at the cylinder of the unperturbed system there is a periodic curve of equilibria).