Choueiri, George H; Suri, Balachandra; Merrin, Jack; Serbyn, Maksym; Hof, Bjorn; Budanur, Burak
description
The theory of chaos has been developed predominantly in the context of low-dimensional systems, well known examples being the three-body problem in classical mechanics and the Lorenz model in dissipative systems. In contrast, many real-world chaotic phenomena, e.g. weather, arise in systems with many degrees of freedom rendering most of the tools of chaos theory inapplicable to these systems in practice. In the present work, we demonstrate that the hydrodynamic pilot-wave systems offer a bridge between low- and high-dimensional chaotic phenomena by allowing for a systematic study of how the former connects to the latter. Specifically, we present experimental results which show the formation of low-dimensional chaotic attractors upon destabilization of regular dynamics and a final transition to high-dimensional chaos via the merging of distinct chaotic regions through a crisis bifurcation. Moreover, we show that the post-crisis dynamics of the system can be rationalized as consecutive scatterings from the nonattracting chaotic sets with lifetimes following exponential distributions.
