Interval Methods for Rigorous Investigations of periodic orbits

In this paper, we investigate the possibility of using interval arithmetic for rigorous investigations of periodic orbits in discrete-time dynamical systems with special emphasis on chaotic systems. We show that methods based on interval arithmetic when implemented properly are capable of finding all period-n cycles for considerable large n. We compare several interval methods for finding periodic orbits. We consider the interval Newton method and methods based on the Krawczyk operator and the Hansen–Sengupta operator. We also test the global versions of these three methods. We propose algorithms for computation of the invariant part and nonwandering part of a given set and for computation of the basin of attraction of stable periodic orbits, which allow reducing greatly the search space for periodic orbits. As examples we consider two-dimensional chaotic discrete-time dynamical systems, defined by the Hénon map and the Ikeda map, with the “standard” parameter values for which the chaotic behavior is observed. For both maps using the algorithms presented in this paper, we find very good approximation of the invariant part and the nonwandering part of the region enclosing the chaotic attractor observed numerically. For the Hénon map we find all cycles with period n ≤ 30 belonging to the trapping region. For the Ikeda map we find the basin of attraction of the stable fixed point and all periodic orbits with period n ≤ 15. For both systems using the number of short cycles, we estimate its topological entropy.