Blowout bifurcations of codimension two

We consider examples of loss of stability of chaotic attractors in invariant subspaces (blowouts) that occur on varying two parameters, i.e. codimension-two blowout bifurcations. Such bifurcations act as organising centres for nearby codimension-one behaviour, analogous to the case for codimension-two bifurcations of equilibria. We consider examples of blowout bifurcations showing change of criticality, blowouts that occur into two different invariant subspaces and interact, blowouts that occur with onset of hyperchaos, interaction of blowout and symmetry increasing bifurcations and collision of blowout bifurcations. As in the case of bifurcation of equilibria, there are many cases in which one can infer the presence and form of secondary bifurcations and associated branches of attractors. There is presently no generic theory of such higher codimension blowouts (there is not even such a theory for codimension-one blowouts). We want to present a number of examples that would need to be covered by such a theory. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.