To continue a branch of homoclinic solutions starting from a Bogdanov--Takens (BT) point in parameter and state space, one needs a predictor based on asymptotics for the bifurcation parameter values and the corresponding small homoclinic orbits in the phase space. We derive two explicit asymptotics for the homoclinic orbits near a generic BT point. A recent generalization of the Lindstedt--Poincaré (L-P) method is applied to approximate a homoclinic solution of a strongly nonlinear autonomous system that results from blowing up the BT normal form. This solution allows us to derive an accurate second-order homoclinic predictor to the homoclinic branch rooted at a generic BT point of an $n$-dimensional ordinary differential equation (ODE). We prove that the method leads to the same homoclinicity conditions as the classical Melnikov technique, the branching method, and the regular perturbation (R-P) method. However, it is known that the R-P method leads to a “parasitic turn” near the saddle point. The new asymptotics based on the L-P method do not have this turn, making them more suitable for numerical implementation. We show how to use these asymptotics to calculate the initial data to continue homoclinic orbits in two free parameters. The new homoclinic predictors are implemented in the MATLAB continuation package MatCont to initialize the continuation of homoclinic orbits from a BT point. Two examples with multidimensional state spaces are included.

It is known that in the Bogdanov–Takens map there exists a zone of transversal homoclinic intersections bounded by two curves of homoclinic tangencies. In this paper, we derive an improved asymptotic formula for the homoclinic parameter values of the BT map. We compare two methods to approximate the Bogdanov–Takens map by the time-1 flow of a vector-field, and find that they are equivalent. We show that it is essential to include the second-order terms w.r.t. the parameters to obtain a more accurate asymptotic for the homoclinic zone. We show how to use this new homoclinic asymptotic to compute branches of homoclinic tangencies in the BT map numerically, obtaining the whole homoclinic structure of the Bogdanov–Takens map.

MatContM is a MATLAB interactive toolbox for the numerical study of iterated smooth maps, their Lyapunov exponents, fixed points, and periodic, homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits as well as their stable and unstable invariant manifolds. The bifurcation analysis is based on continuation methods, tracing out solution manifolds of various types of objects while some of the parameters of the map vary. In particular, MatContM computes codimension 1 bifurcation curves of cycles and supports the computation of the normal form coefficients of their codimension two bifurcations, and allows branch switching from codimension 2 points to secondary curves. MatContM builds on an earlier command-line MATLAB package CL MatContM but provides new computational routines and functionalities, as well as a graphical user interface, enabling interactive control of all computations, data handling and archiving. We apply MatContM in our study of the monopoly model of T. Puu with cubic price and quadratic marginal cost functions. Using MatContM, we analyze the fixed points and their stability and we compute branches of solutions of period 5, 10, 13 17. The chaotic and periodic behavior of the monopoly model is further analyzed by computing the largest Lyapunov exponents.