Global dynamics of the Rikitake system (Q1007785)

The dynamics of the Rikitake attractor at a neighborhood of infinity is studied using the Poincaré compactification for polynomial vector fields in \(\mathbb R^3\). The attractor is generated by the ODE system \(\dot x=-\mu x+zy\), \(\dot y=-\mu y +(z-a)x\), \(\dot z=1-xy\), (\(\mu, a\) are positive real parameters) introduced by \textit{T. Rikitake} [Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 54, 89--105 (1958; Zbl 0087.23703)] as a geodynamics model. Also, the flow over two invariant planes is studied for particular values of \(\mu\) and \(a\) as well as the global flow in the case of system's complete integrability, which allows numerical description of the attractor.