A three-dimensional singularly perturbed conservative system with symmetry breaking (Q2843757)

Motivated by one geophysical problem described by the 10-dimensional model [\textit{D. T. Crommelin}, ``Regime transitions and heteroclinic connections in a barotropic atmosphere'', J. Atmos. Sci. 60, 229--246 (2003)] the authors have considered in previous works a system of four ODEs possessing some properties (the linear part of the system around the origin consists of weakly-damped linear oscillators; the nonlinear part of the relevant vector field is defined by a quadratic energy-preserving dynamic system), which was reduced by averaging over the time period of \(2\pi\) to a system in normal form. In the reviewed article, the authors study a three-dimensional system, which is similar to this normal form and is an approximation for a system of two coupled linearly damped oscillators with widely separated frequencies and a general quadratic nonlinearity that preserves energy. This system has an invariant plane presenting also a stable manifold of trivial equilibria, however the added constant term removes this property and one aim of the article is to prove the existence of a homoclinic orbit in the system. The existence of the invariant plane in the system without added constant term implies the expected coexistence of two attractors in the system. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINEFollowing [\textit{F. Verhulst} et al., Averaging methods in nonlinear dynamical systems. 2nd ed. New York, NY: Springer (2007; Zbl 1128.34001)], the authors perform a numerical bifurcation analysis of the system and prove the existence of two large positive attractors and explain their dynamics. The existence of homoclinic orbit implies the existence of infinitely many unstable periodic solutions in its neighborhood.