Centre for Mathematics of the University of Porto

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The role of the saddle-foci on the structure of a bykov attracting set

Publication . Bessa, Mário; Carvalho, Maria; Rodrigues, Alexandre A. P.

We consider a one-parameter family ( fλ)λ 􏰅 0 of symmetric vector fields on the three-dimensional sphere whose flows exhibit a heteroclinic network between two saddle-foci inside a global attracting set. More precisely, when λ = 0, there is an attracting heteroclinic cycle between the two equilibria which is made of two 1- dimensional connections together with a 2-dimensional sphere which is both the stable manifold of one saddle-focus and the unstable manifold of the other. After slightly increasing the parameter while keeping the 1-dimensional connections unaltered, the two-dimensional invariant manifolds of the equilibria become transversal, and thereby create homoclinic and heteroclinic tangles. It is known that these newborn structures are the source of a countable union of topological horseshoes, which prompt the coexistence of infinitely many sinks and saddle-type invariant sets for many values of λ. We show that, for every small enough positive parameter λ, the stable and unstable manifolds of the saddle-foci and those infinitely many horseshoes are contained in the global attracting set of fλ; moreover, the horseshoes belong to the heteroclinic class of the equilibria. In addition, we show that the set of chain-accessible points from either of the saddle-foci is chain-stable and contains the closure of the invariant manifolds of the two equilibria.

2020Journal article

Open access

Positive topological entropy for semi-Riemannian geodesic flows

Publication . Bessa, Mário; Dias, João Lopes; Matias, Pedro; Torres, Maria Joana; Wenxian , Shen

We consider a semi-Riemannian metric whose associated geodesic flow either contains a non-hyperbolic periodic orbit or has infinitely many hyperbolic periodic orbits. Under some conditions, we show that the metric can be perturbed such that the geodesic flow exhibits positive topological entropy, there are infinitely many non-lightlike closed geodesics, and their number grows exponentially with respect to the length.

2025Journal article

Open access