A crisis in the Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction: Experiment and simulation

An abrupt transition that has the character of aninterior crisis was observed in an experiment on the Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction as a control parameter was varied (a crisis is a qualitative change in the dynamics of a system observed when an attractor collides with the stable manifold of a fixed point). The interpretation of the observed behavior as a crisis is corroborated by a numerical analysis of a seven-variable model of the reaction. The waveforms, attractors, and maps obtained in the simulation are remarkably similar to those obtained in the laboratory experiment. The simulation indicates that the crisis is a consequence of a multivalued first return map.