Robust heteroclinic cycles occur naturally in many classes of nonlinear differential equations with invariant hyperplanes. In particular they occur frequently in models for ecological dynamics and fluid mechanical instabilities. We consider the effect of small-amplitude time-periodic forcing and describe how to reduce the dynamics to a two-dimensional map. In the limit where the heteroclinic cycle loses asymptotic stability, intervals of frequency locking appear. In the opposite limit, where the heteroclinic cycle becomes strongly stable, the dynamics remains chaotic and no frequency locking is observed.

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In this article we discuss, with a combination of analytical and numerical results, a canonical set of differential equations with a robust heteroclinic cycle, subjected to timeperiodic forcing. We find that three distinct dynamical regimes exist, depending on the ratio of the contracting and expanding eigenvalues at the equilibria on the heteroclinic cycle which exists in the absence of forcing. By reducing the dynamics to that of a two dimensional map we show how frequency locking and complex dynamics arise.

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