Heteroclinic connections in singularly perturbed systems (Q934155)

The authors study the singularly perturbed system \[ \dot x = \varepsilon f(x,y,\lambda,\varepsilon), \quad \dot y = g(x,y,\lambda,\varepsilon), \quad x \in {\mathbb R}^m, \;y \in {\mathbb R}^n, \tag{1} \] where \(\varepsilon \geq 0\) and \(\lambda \in {\mathbb R}\) are sufficiently small parameters, the functions \(f\) and \( g\) are \(C^r\)-smooth and bounded with their derivatives, \(r \geq 2\). The authors consider system (1) under some additional conditions. In particular, they assume that for any \(x \in {\mathbb R}^m\) the equation \(g(x, y, 0, 0) = 0\) has solutions \(y = v^{\pm}(x)\), which are \(C^r\)-smooth and bounded with their derivatives, the Jacobian matrices \(g_y (x, v^{\pm}(x), 0, 0)\) have eigenvalues \(\lambda_i^{\pm}(x)\), \(i=1, \ldots, n\), such that \(\inf_{x \in {\mathbb R}^m} \operatorname{Re} \lambda_i^{\pm}(x) \geq \delta_0\) for some \(\delta_0 >0\), and the numbers of \(\lambda_i^{\pm}(x)\) with positive and negative real parts for these matrices are the same. These conditions imply the existence of centre manifolds \(y = v^{\pm}(x,\lambda,\varepsilon)\) of the system (1) together with their associated centre-stable and centre-unstable manifolds. Assuming only two mentioned conditions the authors show how the global centre-stable and centre-unstable manifolds of system (1) and its stable and unstable foliations are defined. They characterize the tangent spaces to the centre-stable and centre-unstable manifolds of system (1) and also the leaves in the stable and unstable foliations as initial values of solutions of the variational system with certain rates of growth. Assuming some additional conditions they prove a theorem which shows that heteroclinic orbits of (1) correspond to the zeroes of a certain scalar bifurcation function. Then they prove a second theorem which derives a second bifurcation function the zeroes of which correspond to the vectors in the intersection of the tangent spaces to the centre-stable and centre-unstable manifolds along the heteroclinic orbits of (1) found in the first theorem.