UNIVERSAL CRITICAL-BEHAVIOR IN 2-DIMENSIONAL COUPLED MAP LATTICES

We numerically investigate the critical properties of nonequilibrium c ontinuous phase transitions in two-dimensional, synchronously updated lattices of coupled chaotic maps. A finite-size scaling analysis provi des evidence for the existence of a new universality class, characteri zed by a correlation-length exponent nu = 0.89 +/- 0.03 < nu(Ising) = 1.0, while the exponent ratios beta/gamma, gamma/nu, and the amplitude ratio U are consistent with the 2D Ising universality class. The sta ndard value of nu is recovered for asynchronous updating rules.