Bifurcation of homoclinic orbits to a saddle-focus in reversible systems with SO(2)-symmetry (Q1970028)

The authors study the existence and bifurcation of homoclinic and periodic orbits in depending on a real parameter \(\varepsilon\) to reversible ordinary differential equations in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) with SO(2)-symmetry. It is assumed that for \(\varepsilon =0\) the vector field possesses a primary family of homoclinic orbits \(T_{\alpha}H_0\), \(\alpha\in\mathbb{S}^1\) (\(T_{\alpha}\) is a representation of SO(2)) to a saddle-focus. The existence of the symmetry group SO(2) leads to essential new features that have no analogues in the theory of generic reversible vector fields. Under a transversality condition with respect to \(\varepsilon\) the existence of homoclinic \(n\)-pulse solutions is shown for a sequence of parameter values \(\varepsilon _k^n\to 0\), \(k=1,2,\dots\). In the paper, an \(n\)-pulse solution is a homoclinic solution which unlike an \(n\)-homoclinic solution in the classical theory does not wind around \(n\)-times close to one primary homoclinic solution \(T_{\alpha}H_0(\cdot)\), but follows once each of \(n\) shifted homoclinic solutions \(T_{\alpha _j}H_0(\cdot)\) with suitable \(\alpha _1,\dots ,\alpha _n\) before they return to the origin. The existence of cascades of \(2^l3^m\)-pulse solutions is obtained by showing their transversality and using induction. The method relies on the construction of an SO(2)-equivariant Poincaré map which, after factorization, is a composition of two involutions: a logarithmic twist map and a smooth global map. Reversible periodic orbits of this map corresponds to reversible periodic or homoclinic solutions to the original problem. As an application of the obtained results the authors treat the steady complex Ginzburg-Landau equation for which a primary homoclinic solution is known explicitly.