Period-doubling cascades for large perturbations of Hénon families

The Hénon family has been shown to have period-doubling cascades. We show here that the same occurs for a much larger class: Large perturbations do not destroy cascades. Furthermore, we can classify the period of a cascade in terms of the set of orbits it contains, and count the number of cascades of each period. This class of families extends a general theory explaining why cascades occur [5].     

Crossing bifurcations and unstable dimension variability

A crisis is a global bifurcation in which a chaotic attractor has a discontinuous change in size or suddenly disappears as a scalar parameter of the system is varied. In this Letter, we describe a global bifurcation in three dimensions which can result in a crisis. This bifurcation does not involve a tangency and cannot occur in maps of dimension smaller than 3. We present evidence of unstable dimension variability as a result of the crisis. We then derive a new scaling law describing the density of the new portion of the attractor formed in the crisis. We illustrate this new type of bifurcation with a specific example of a three-dimensional chaotic attractor undergoing a crisis.     

Fixed points indices and period-doubling cascades

Period-doubling cascades are among the most prominent features of many smooth one-parameter families of maps, \({F : \mathbb{R}\times\mathfrak{M} \rightarrow \mathfrak{M},}\) where \({\mathfrak{M}}\) is a locally compact manifold without boundary, typically \({\mathbb{R}^N}\). In particular, we investigate F(μ, ·) for \({\mu \in J = [\mu_{1}, \mu_{2}]}\), when F(μ ₁, ·) has only finitely many periodic orbits while F(μ ₂, ·) has exponential growth of the number of periodic orbits as a function of the period. For generic F, under additional hypotheses, we use a fixed point index argument to show that there are infinitely many “regular” periodic orbits at μ ₂. Furthermore, all but finitely many of these regular orbits at μ ₂ are tethered to their own period-doubling cascade. Specifically, each orbit ρ at μ ₂ lies in a connected component C(ρ) of regular orbits in \({J \times \mathfrak{M}}\); different regular orbits typically are contained in different components, and each component contains a period-doubling cascade. These components are one-manifolds of orbits, meaning that we can reasonably say that an orbit ρ is “tethered” or “tied” to a unique cascade. When F(μ ₂) has horseshoe dynamics, we show how to count the number of regular orbits of each period, and hence the number of cascades in \({J \times \mathfrak{M}}\).As corollaries of our main results, we give several examples, we prove that the map in each example has infinitely many cascades, and we count the cascades.     

Testing whether two chaotic one dimensional processes are dynamically identical

Consider the situation where two individuals observe the same chaotic physical process but through time series of different measured variables (e.g., one individual measures a temperature and the other measures a voltage). If the two individuals now use their data to reconstruct (e.g., via delay coordinates) a map, the maps they obtain may appear quite different. In the case where the resulting maps appear one dimensional, we introduce a method to test consistency with the hypothesis that they represent the same physical process. We illustrate this method using experimental data from an electric circuit.     

An open set of maps for which every point is absolutely nonshadowable

We consider a class of nonhyperbolic systems, for which there are two fixed points in an attractor having a dense trajectory; the unstable manifold of one has dimension one and the other's is two dimensional. Under the condition that there exists a direction which is more expanding than other directions, we show that such attractors are nonshadowable. Using this theorem, we prove that there is an open set of diffeomorphisms (in the -topology, ) for which every point is absolutely nonshadowable, i.e., there exists such that, for every , almost every -pseudo trajectory starting from this point is -nonshadowable.

     

Metastable chaos: The transition to sustained chaotic behavior in the Lorenz model

The system of equations introduced by Lorenz to model turbulent convective flow is studied here for Rayleigh numbersr somewhat smaller than the critical value required for sustained chaotic behavior. In this regime the system is found to exhibit transient chaotic behavior. Some statistical properties of this transient chaos are examined numerically. A mean decay time from chaos to steady flow is found and its dependence uponr is studied both numerically and (very close to the criticalr) analytically.This work was supported in part by NASA grant NSG 5209; partial support of computer costs was provided by the University of Maryland-Baltimore County Computer Center.     

Topological horseshoes

When does a continuous map have chaotic dynamics in a set ? More specifically, when does it factor over a shift on symbols? This paper is an attempt to clarify some of the issues when there is no hyperbolicity assumed. We find that the key is to define a ``crossing number' for that set . If that number is and 1$">, then contains a compact invariant set which factors over a shift on symbols.

     

Stagger-and-step method: detecting and computing chaotic saddles in higher dimensions

Chaotic transients occur in many experiments including those in fluids, in simulations of the plane Couette flow, and in coupled map lattices. These transients are caused by the presence of chaotic saddles, and they are a common phenomenon in higher dimensional dynamical systems. For many physical systems, chaotic saddles have a big impact on laboratory measurements, but there has been no way to observe these chaotic saddles directly. We present the first general method to locate and visualize chaotic saddles in higher dimensions.     

Embedology

Mathematical formulations of the embedding methods commonly used for the reconstruction of attractors from data series are discussed. Embedding theorems, based on previous work by H. Whitney and F. Takens, are established for compact subsetsA of Euclidean space R^k. Ifn is an integer larger than twice the box-counting dimension ofA, then almost every map fromR ^k toR ⁿ , in the sense of prevalence, is one-to-one onA, and moreover is an embedding on smooth manifolds contained withinA. IfA is a chaotic attractor of a typical dynamical system, then the same is true for almost everydelay-coordinate map fromR ^k toR ⁿ . These results are extended in two other directions. Similar results are proved in the more general case of reconstructions which use moving averages of delay coordinates. Second, information is given on the self-intersection set that exists whenn is less than or equal to twice the box-counting dimension ofA.