EXPERIMENTAL-OBSERVATION OF ON-OFF INTERMITTENCY

We observe on-off intermittency in a nonlinear electronic circuit tune d near a Hopf bifurcation point. The circuit is driven randomly throug h the bifurcation point, resulting in intermittent switching between a fixed point (laminar phase) and a limit cycle. The distribution of le ngths of laminar phases exhibits -3/2 power law scaling for shorter ph ases, and an exponential drop for longer phases, due to noise in the s ystem. These results agree with a theoretically predicted distribution . In addition, the crossover from power law to exponential decay obeys the predicted scaling law.