Heteroclinic bifurcation in a class of planar piecewise smooth systems with multiple zones (Q322092)

This paper deals with a class of periodically forced planar piecewise smooth systems. This class is characterised by the assumption that the discontinuities appear only on finitely many smooth curves emanating from the origin. Further it is assumed that the unperturbed system has a heteroclinic cycle connecting hyperbolic equilibria which are located in the subregions defined by the smooth curves. The authors present a Melnikov type method to study the intersections of the corresponding stable and unstable manifolds of associated periodic orbits of the perturbed system. The main result provides a sufficient condition for transversal intersections of these manifolds. The authors make clear that, due to lack of smoothness of the associated Poincaré map, the transversal intersection does not imply chaotic behaviour. Further, the authors demonstrate for two particular model systems how the Melnikov functions can be computed. Finally, numerical experiments for these systems suggest chaotic dynamics.