Quadratic Volume-Preserving Maps: (Un)stable Manifolds, Hyperbolic Dynamics, and Vortex-Bubble Bifurcations

We implement a semi-analytic scheme for numerically computing high order polynomial approximations of the stable and unstable manifolds associated with the fixed points of the normal form for the family of quadratic volume-preserving diffeomorphisms with quadratic inverse. We use this numerical scheme to study some hyperbolic dynamics associated with an invariant structure called a vortex bubble. The vortex bubble, when present in the system, is the dominant feature in the phase space of the quadratic family, as it encloses all invariant dynamics. Our study focuses on visualizing qualitative features of the vortex bubble such as bifurcations in its geometry, the geometry of some three-dimensional homoclinic tangles associated with the bubble, and the “quasi-capture” of homoclinic orbits by neighboring fixed points. Throughout, we couple our results with previous qualitative numerical studies of the elliptic dynamics within the vortex bubble of the quadratic family.