Bifurcations of one- and two-dimensional maps

Abstract

We study the qualitative dynamics of two-parameter families of planar maps of the form F^e(x, y) = (y, -ex+f(y)), where f :R -> R is a C 3 map with a single critical point and negative Schwarzian derivative. The prototype of such maps is the family f(y) = u —y 2 or (in different coordinates) f(y) = Ay(1 —y), in which case F^ e is the Henon map. The maps F e have constant Jacobian determinant e and, as e -> 0, collapse to the family f^. The behaviour of such one-dimensional families is quite well understood, and we are able to use their bifurcation structures and information on their non-wandering sets to obtain results on both local and global bifurcations of F/ ue , for small e . Moreover, we are able to extend these results to the area preserving family F/u. 1 , thereby obtaining (partial) bifurcation sets in the (/u, e)-plane. Among our conclusions we find that the bifurcation sequence for periodic orbits, which is restricted by Sarkovskii’s theorem and the kneading theory for one-dimensional maps, is quite different for two-dimensional families. In particular, certain periodic orbits that appear at the end of the one-dimensional sequence appear at the beginning of the area preserving sequence, and infinitely many families of saddle node and period doubling bifurcation curves cross each other in the ( /u, e ) -parameter plane between e = 0 and e = 1. We obtain these results from a study of the homoclinic bifurcations (tangencies of stable and unstable manifolds) of F /u.e and of the associated sequences of periodic bifurcations that accumulate on them. We illustrate our results with some numerical computations for the orientation-preserving Henon map.