"Large" strange attractors in the unfolding of a heteroclinic attractor

Abstract

We present a mechanism for the emergence of strange attractors in a one-parameter family of differential equations defined on a 3-dimensional sphere. When the parameter is zero, its flow exhibits an attracting heteroclinic network (Bykov network) made by two 1-dimensional connections and one 2-dimensional separatrix between two saddles-foci with different Morse indices. After slightly increasing the parameter, while keeping the 1-dimensional connections unaltered, we concentrate our study in the case where the 2-dimensional invariant manifolds of the equilibria do not intersect. We will show that, for a set of parameters close enough to zero with positive Lebesgue measure, the dynamics exhibits strange attractors winding around the "ghost'' of a torus and supporting Sinai-Ruelle-Bowen (SRB) measures. We also prove the existence of a sequence of parameter values for which the family exhibits a superstable sink and describe the transition from a Bykov network to a strange attractor.