No Chaos in Dixon’s System

Abstract

The so-called Dixon system is often cited as an example of a two-dimensional (continuous) dynamical system that exhibits chaotic behavior, if its two parameters take their values in a certain domain. We provide first a rigorous proof that there is no chaos in Dixon’s system. Then we perform a complete bifurcation analysis of the system showing that the parameter space can be decomposed into 16 different regions in each of which the system exhibits qualitatively the same behavior. In particular, we prove that in some regions two elliptic sectors with infinitely many homoclinic orbits exist.