catastrophe in which a limit cycle collides with a nonhyperbolic cycle. Global bifurcations can also involve more complicated sets such as chaotic attractors (e.g. crises). Codimension of a bifurcation The codimension of a bifurcation is the number of parameters which must be varied for the bifurcation to occur. This corresponds to the codimension of the parameter set for which the bifurcation occurs within the full space of parameters. Saddle-node bifurcations and Hopf bifurcations are the only generic local bifurcations which are really codimension-one (the others all having higher codimension). However, transcritical and pitchfork bifurcations are also often thought of as codimension-one, because the normal forms can be written with only one parameter. An example of a well-studied codimension-two bifurcation is the Bogdanov–Takens bifurcation. Applications in semiclassical and quantum physics Bifurcation theory has been applied to connect quantum systems to the dynamics of their classical analogues in atomic systems, molecular systems, and resonant tunneling diodes. Bifurcation theory has also been applied to the study of laser dynamics and a number of theoretical examples which are difficult to access experimentally such as the kicked top and coupled quantum wells. The dominant reason for the link between quantum systems and bifurcations in the classical equations of motion is that at bifurcations, the signature of classical orbits becomes large, as Martin Gutzwiller points out in his classic work on quantum chaos. Many kinds of bifurcations have been studied with regard to links between classical and quantum dynamics including saddle node bifurcations, Hopf bifurcations, umbilic bifurcations, period doubling bifurcations, reconnection bifurcations, tangent bifurcations, and cusp bifurcations. See also Bifurcation diagram Bifurcation memory Catastrophe theory Feigenbaum constants Geomagnetic reversal Phase portrait Tennis racket theorem Notes References Guardia, M.; Martinez-Seara, M.; Teixeira, M. A. (2011). Generic bifurcations of low codimension of planar Filippov Systems. "Journal of differential equations", Febrer 2011, vol. 250, núm. 4, pp. 1967–2023. DOI:10.1016/j.jde.2010.11.016 External links Nonlinear dynamics Bifurcations and Two Dimensional Flows by Elmer G. Wiens Introduction to Bifurcation theory by John David Crawford Nonlinear systems