Bifurcation to homoclinic orbits and to periodic solutions for non- autonomous three-dimensional systems (Q1824749)

The authors study homoclinic and periodic solutions of perturbations of certain three-dimensional systems. The unperturbed system \(\dot x=f(x)\), \(x\in {\mathbb{R}}^ 3\), is the product of a two-dimensional Hamiltonian system \(\dot u=f_ 1(u)\) with the one-dimensional equation \(\dot v=- \alpha v\), \(\alpha >0\). The Hamiltonian system is assumed to have a homoclinic loop surrounding a family of closed orbits. Thus the u-plane is invariant but not necessarily normally hyperbolic. A small two- parameter, one-periodic perturbation is added to obtain \(\dot x=f(x)+g(\lambda,\mu,t,x),\) with \(g(0,0,t,x)=0\). The main interest is in bifurcation of k-periodic solutions from the closed orbit of period k of the unperturbed system (kth order subharmonics). Under nondegeneracy assumptions, there are two curves \(C_{k_ 0}\) and \(C_{k_ 1}\) through the origin in \(\lambda\) \(\mu\)-space such that kth order subharmonics exist for (\(\lambda\),\(\mu)\) between these curves. As \(k\to \infty\), \(C_{k_ 0}\) and \(C_{k_ 1}\) approach the corresponding curves for homoclinic bifurcation. The proofs use Lyapunov-Schmidt reduction as in \textit{S.-N. Chow}, \textit{J. Hale} and \textit{J. Mallet-Paret} [``An example of bifurcation to homoclinic orbits'', J. Differ. Equations 37, 351-373 (1980; Zbl 0439.34035)] a geometric interpretation is also prodived.