More Dynamical Properties Revealed from a 3D Lorenz-like System

Abstract

After a 3D Lorenz-like system has been revisited, more rich hidden dynamics that was not found previously is clearly revealed. Some more precise mathematical work, such as for the complete distribution and the local stability and bifurcation of its equilibrium points, the existence of singularly degenerate heteroclinic cycles as well as homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits, and the dynamics at infinity, is carried out in this paper. In particular, another possible new mechanism behind the creation of chaotic attractors is presented. Based on this mechanism, some different structure types of chaotic attractors are numerically found in the case of small b > 0. All theoretical results obtained are further illustrated by numerical simulations. What we formulate in this paper is to not only show those dynamical properties hiding in this system, but also (more mainly) present a kind of way and means — both "locally" and "globally" and both "finitely" and "infinitely" — to comprehensively explore a given system.