Global topological properties of the Hopf bifurcation

We study the homotopical and homological properties of the attractors evolving from a generalized Hopf bifurcation. We consider the Lorenz equations for parameter values near the Hopf bifurcation and study a natural Morse decomposition of the global attractor, calculating the Čech homotopy type of the Lorenz attractor, the shape indexes of the Morse sets and the Morse equation of the decomposition.