Noise Induced Transitions To Chaos

Noise-Induced Transitions to Chaos

Noise-Induced Transitions

The study of phase transitions is among the most fascinating fields in physics. Originally limited to transition phenomena in equilibrium systems, this field has outgrown its classical confines during the last two decades. The behavior of far from equilibrium systems has received more and more attention and has been an extremely active and productive subject of research for physicists, chemists and biologists. Their studies have brought about a more unified vision of the laws which govern self-organization processes of physico-chemical and biological sys tems. A major achievement has been the extension of the notion of phase transi tion to instabilities which occur only in open nonlinear systems. The notion of phase transition has been proven fruitful in apphcation to nonequilibrium ins- bihties known for about eight decades, like certain hydrodynamic instabilities, as well as in the case of the more recently discovered instabilities in quantum optical systems such as the laser, in chemical systems such as the Belousov-Zhabotinskii reaction and in biological systems. Even outside the realm of natural sciences, this notion is now used in economics and sociology. In this monograph we show that the notion of phase transition can be extend ed even further. It apphes also to a new class of transition phenomena which occur only in nonequilibrium systems subjected to a randomly fluctuating en vironment.

Dynamical Chaos

In this book, bifurcational mechanisms of the development, structure and properties of chaotic attractors are investigated by numerical and physical experiments based on the methods of the modern theory of nonlinear oscillations. The typical bifurcations of regular and chaotic attractors which are due to parameter variations are analyzed.Regularities of the transition to chaos via the collapse of quasiperiodic oscillations with two and three frequencies are investigated in detail. The book deals with the problems of chaotic synchronization, interaction of attractors and the phenomenon of stochastic resonance. The problems of fluctuation influence on the bifurcations and properties of chaotic attractors are investigated more closely.All principal problems are investigated by the comparison of theoretical and numerical results and data from physical experiments.