Physica D
194 30-48 (2004) 30-48.
10.1016/j.physd.2004.02.002
Two-state intermittency near a symmetric interaction of saddle-node and Hopf bifurcations: a case study
from dynamo theory
Peter Ashwin(1)
Alastair M. Rucklidge(2)
Rob Sturman(2).
(1) School of Mathematical Sciences, Laver Building,
University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QE, UK
(2) Department of Applied Mathematics,
University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
Abstract.
We consider a model of a Hopf bifurcation interacting as a codimension 2 bifurcation with a saddle-node on a
limit cycle, motivated by a low-order model for magnetic activity in a stellar dynamo. This model consists
of coupled interactions between a saddle-node and two Hopf bifurcations, where the saddle-node bifurcation
is assumed to have global reinjection of trajectories. The model can produce chaotic behaviour within each
of a pair of invariant subspaces, and also it can show attractors that are stuck-on to both of the invariant
subspaces. We investigate the detailed intermittent dynamics for such an attractor, investigating the effect
of breaking the symmetry between the two Hopf bifurcations, and observing that it can appear via blowout
bifurcations from the invariant subspaces.
We give a simple Markov chain model for the two-state intermittent dynamics that reproduces the time spent
close to the invariant subspaces and the switching between the different possible invariant subspaces; this
clarifies the observation that the proportion of time spent near the different subspaces depends on the
average residence time and also on the probabilities of switching between the possible subspaces.
gzipped PostScript version of this paper (1.2MB)