CHARACTERIZATION OF HOMOCLINIC CHAOS THROUGH DOUBLE-VALUED RETURN TIME MAPS

For a laser with a saturable absorber (LSA) and for a subnormal glow d ischarge (GD), both displaying homoclinic chaos, it is shown that doub le-valued curves in the return time maps, reconstructed from the time evolution of appropriate variables, are related to different time scal es associated with the two mechanisms present in the respective chaoti c attractors: the escape from an unstable saddle cycle and the reinjec tion process. For the LSA the investigation is performed numerically o n a 3-2 molecular level model and the results are compared with experi mental ones obtained from a CO2-OsO4 LSA system having the laser frequ ency detuning as the control parameter. The analysis is complemented w ith experimental results from the GD. For both systems we show how to obtain single-valued multibranched return time maps starting from doub le-valued return time maps, enabling the characterization of homoclini c chaos.