New features of doubly transient chaos: Complexity of decay

Abstract

In dissipative systems without any driving or positive feedback all motion stops ultimately since the initial kinetic energy is dissipated away during time evolution. If chaos is present, it can only be of transient type. Traditional transient chaos is, however, supported by an infinity of unstable orbits. In the lack of these, chaos in undriven dissipative systems is of another type: it is termed doubly transient chaos as the strength of transient chaos is diminishing in time, and ceases asymptotically. Here we show that a clear view of such dynamics is provided by identifying KAM tori or chaotic regions of the dissipation-free case, and following their time evolution in the dissipative dynamics. The tori often smoothly deform first, but later they become disintegrated and dissolve in a kind of shrinking chaos. We identify different dynamical measures for the characterization of this process which illustrate that the strength of chaos is first diminishing, and after a while disappears, the motion enters the phase of ultimate stopping.