Horseshoes in Perturbations of Hamiltonian Systems with Two Degrees of Freedom

Abstract

This paper concerns Hamiltonian and non-Hamiltonian perturbations of integrable two degree of freedom Hamiltonian systems which contain homoclinic and periodic orbits. Our main example concerns perturbations of the uncoupled system consisting of the simple pendulum and the harmonic oscillator. We show that small coupling perturbations with, possibly, the addition of positive and negative damping breaks the integrability by introducing horseshoes into the dynamics.

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