Homoclinic Saddle-Node Bifurcations in Singularly Perturbed Systems

In this paper we study the creation of homoclinic orbits by saddle-node bifurcations. Inspired on similar phenomena appearing in the analysis of so-called localized structures in modulation or amplitude equations, we consider a family of nearly integrable, singularly perturbed three dimensional vector fields with two bifurcation parameters a and b. The O() perturbation destroys a manifold consisting of a family of integrable homoclinic orbits: it breaks open into two manifolds, W^s() and W^u(), the stable and unstable manifolds of a slow manifold . Homoclinic orbits to correspond to intersections W^s()W^u(); W^s()W^u()= for a<a*, a pair of 1-pulse homoclinic orbits emerges as first intersection of W^s() and W^u() as a>a*. The bifurcation at a=a* is followed by a sequence of nearby, O(²(log)²) close, homoclinic saddle-node bifurcations at which pairs of N-pulse homoclinic orbits are created (these orbits make N circuits through the fast field). The second parameter b distinguishes between two significantly different cases: in the cooperating (respectively counteracting) case the averaged effect of the fast field is in the same (respectively opposite) direction as the slow flow on . The structure of W^s()W^u() becomes highly complicated in the counteracting case: we show the existence of many new types of sometimes exponentially close homoclinic saddle-node bifurcations. The analysis in this paper is mainly of a geometrical nature.