Calculation of homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits in 1D maps

Homoclinic orbits and heteroclinic connections are important in several contexts, in particular for a proof of the existence of chaos and for the description of bifurcations of chaotic attractors. In this work we discuss an algorithm for their numerical detection in smooth or piecewise smooth, continuous or discontinuous maps. The algorithm is based on the convergence of orbits in backward time and is therefore applicable to expanding fixed points and cycles. For simplicity, we present the algorithm using 1D maps.