ROBUST BURSTING TO THE ORIGIN: HETEROCLINIC CYCLES WITH MAXIMAL SYMMETRY EQUILIBRIA

Abstract

Robust attracting heteroclinic cycles have been found in many models of dynamics with symmetries. In all previous examples, robust heteroclinic cycles appear between a number of symmetry broken equilibria. In this paper we examine the first example where there are robust attracting heteroclinic cycles that include the origin, i.e. a point with maximal symmetry. The example we study is for vector fields on ℝ3 with (ℤ2)3 symmetry. We list all possible generic (codimension one) local and global bifurcations by which this cycle can appear as an attractor; these include a resonance bifurcation from a limit cycle, direct bifurcation from a stable origin and direct bifurcation from other and more familiar robust heteroclinic cycles.