Application of fixed point theory to chaotic attractors of forced oscillators (Q1179787)

The structure of chaotic attractors of periodically forced second-order nonlinear oscillators \(x=f(x,t)\), \(x\in R^ 2\) is discussed in the paper. Here \(f(x,t)\) is a function periodic in \(t\) with a period \(L\). The presentation is based on the idea which suggests that the theory of fixed points of transformations gives information about the fundamental topological structure of attractors. The author studies the Poincaré map \(T\) defined by \[ T(x(x_ 0,t))=x(x_ 0,t+L). \] The extension of the Levinson index formula is proved for the transformation \(T\). Theorem 1. Let \(T^ n\) have a finite number of fixed points, none of which lies in \(\partial \Omega\) and \(T(\partial\Omega)\subset\Omega\), where \(\Omega\) is a bounded open domain with a finite number of holes. Then the rotation of \(T\) on \(\partial\Omega\) equals the Euler characteristic \(\chi_ \Omega\) of the domain \(\Omega\), and \[ C_ \Omega(n)+U_ \Omega(n)+I_ \Omega(n)=D_ \Omega(n)+\chi_ \Omega. \] Here only the points in \(\Omega\) are counted in each case. The values \(C_ \Omega(n)\), \(U_ \Omega(n)\), \(T_ \Omega(n)\), \(D_ \Omega(n)\) are the numbers of isolated simple fixed points for the transformation \(T^ n\) of the following four possible types respectively: \(| \lambda_ 1| < 1\), \(| \lambda_ 2| < 1\); \(|\lambda_ 1| > 1\), \(| \lambda_ 2| > 1\); \(\lambda_ 1 > 1 > \lambda_ 2 > 0\); \(\lambda_ 2 < -1 < \lambda_ 1 < 0\). Here \(\lambda_ 1,\lambda_ 2\) are the eigenvalues of the linear part of the transformation \(T\). Further the author formulates two plausible conjectures about absorbing regions containing chaotic attractors.