EFFECT OF PARAMETER MISMATCH ON THE MECHANISM OF CHAOS SYNCHRONIZATION LOSS IN COUPLED SYSTEMS

Using the example of two coupled logistic maps, we investigate the eff ect of nonidentical subsystems on the bifurcations of saddle periodic orbits embedded in a symmetric chaotic attractor. These bifurcations d etermine the process of loss of chaos synchronization. We show that if bifurcations conditioned by the symmetry of the system take part in t he synchronization loss process, nonidentity changes the bifurcation s cenario of the transition to a nonsynchronous regime. In this case, fo r example, the transition to the bubbling behavior is determined not b y bifurcation of an orbit embedded in the chaotic attractor but by the smooth shift of it and the saddle-repeller bifurcation of the birth o f new orbits in the vicinity of the quasisymmetric region. [S1063-651X (98)10909-1].