A new construction for Melnikov chaos in piecewise-smooth planar systems

In this paper we consider a piecewise smooth $2$-dimensional system \[ \dot{\vec{x}}=\vec{g} (\vec{x})+\varepsilon\vec{g}(t,\vec{x},\varepsilon) \] where $\varepsilon>0$ is a small parameter and $\vec{f}$ is discontinuous along a curve $Ω^0$. We assume that $\vec{0}$ is a critical point for any $\varepsilon \geq 0$, and that for $\varepsilon=0$ the system admits a trajectory $\vecγ(t)$ homoclinic to $\vec{0}$ and crossing transversely $Ω^0$ in $\vecγ(0)$. In a previous paper we have shown that, also in an $n$-dimensional setting, the classical Melnikov condition is enough to guarantee the persistence of the homoclinic to perturbations, but more recently we have found an open condition, a geometric obstruction which is not possible in the smooth case, which prevents chaos for $2$-dimensional systems when $\vec{g}$ is periodic in $t$. In this paper we show that when this obstruction is removed we have chaos as in the smooth case. The proofs involve a new construction of the set $Σ$ from which the chaotic pattern originates. The results are illustrated by examples.