Jesús M. Seoane

Basin topology in dissipative chaotic scattering

Chaotic scattering in open Hamiltonian systems under weak dissipation is not only of fundamental interest but also important for problems of current concern such as the advection and transport of inertial particles in fluid flows. Previous work using discrete maps demonstrated that nonhyperbolic chaotic scattering is structurally unstable in the sense that the algebraic decay of scattering particles immediately becomes exponential in the presence of weak dissipation. Here we extend the result to continuous-time Hamiltonian systems by using the Henon-Heiles system as a prototype model. More importantly, we go beyond to investigate the basin structure of scattering dynamics. A surprising finding is that, in the common case where multiple destinations exist for scattering trajectories, Wada basin boundaries are common and they appear to be structurally stable under weak dissipation, even when other characteristics of the nonhyperbolic scattering dynamics are not. We provide numerical evidence and a geometric theory for the structural stability of the complex basin topology.

New developments in classical chaotic scattering

Classical chaotic scattering is a topic of fundamental interest in nonlinear physics due to the numerous existing applications in fields such as celestial mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics and fluid mechanics, among others. Many new advances in chaotic scattering have been achieved in the last few decades. This work provides a current overview of the field, where our attention has been mainly focused on the most important contributions related to the theoretical framework of chaotic scattering, the fractal dimension, the basins boundaries and new applications, among others. Numerical techniques and algorithms, as well as analytical tools used for its analysis, are also included. We also show some of the experimental setups that have been implemented to study diverse manifestations of chaotic scattering. Furthermore, new theoretical aspects such as the study of this phenomenon in time-dependent systems, different transitions and bifurcations to chaotic scattering and a classification of boundaries in different types according to symbolic dynamics are also shown. Finally, some recent progress on chaotic scattering in higher dimensions is also described.

TO ESCAPE OR NOT TO ESCAPE, THAT IS THE QUESTION — PERTURBING THE HÉNON–HEILES HAMILTONIAN

In this work, we study the Henon–Heiles Hamiltonian, as a paradigm of open Hamiltonian systems, in the presence of different kinds of perturbations as dissipation, noise and periodic forcing, which are very typical in different physical situations. We focus our work on both the effects of these perturbations on the escaping dynamics and on the basins associated to the phase space and to the physical space. We have also found, in presence of a periodic forcing, an exponential-like decay law for the survival probability of the particles in the scattering region where the frequency of the forcing plays a crucial role. In the bounded regions, the use of the OFLI2 chaos indicator has allowed us to characterize the orbits. We have compared these results with the previous ones obtained for the dissipative and noisy case. Finally, we expect this work to be useful for a better understanding of the escapes in open Hamiltonian systems in the presence of different kinds of perturbations.

ESCAPING DYNAMICS IN THE PRESENCE OF DISSIPATION AND NOISE IN SCATTERING SYSTEMS

Chaotic scattering in open Hamiltonian systems is a problem of fundamental interest with applications in several branches of physics. In this paper we analyze the effects of adding external perturbations such as dissipation and noise in chaotic scattering phenomena. Our main result is the exponential decay rate of the particles in the scattering region when the system is affected by dissipation and noise. In the case of dissipation the particles escape more slowly from the scattering region than in the conservative case. However, in the noisy case, the particles escape faster from the scattering region as compared to the noiseless case. Moreover, we analyze the fractal dimension of the set of singularities of the scattering function for the dissipative and the conservative cases. As a result of our analysis we have found that a scaling law exists between the exponential decay rate of the particles and the dissipative parameter, and that the fractal dimension for the noisy case is the unity.

Phase control of excitable systems

Here we study how to control the dynamics of excitable systems by using the phase control technique. Excitable systems are relevant in neuronal dynamics and therefore this method might have important applications. We use the periodically driven FitzHugh–Nagumo (FHN) model, which displays both spiking and non-spiking behaviours in chaotic or periodic regimes. The phase control technique consists of applying a harmonic perturbation with a suitable phase that we adjust in search of different behaviours of the FHN dynamics. We compare our numerical results with experimental measurements performed on an electronic circuit and find good agreement between them. This method might be useful for a better understanding of excitable systems and different phenomena in neuronal dynamics.

A Validated Mathematical Model of Tumor Growth Including Tumor–Host Interaction, Cell-Mediated Immune Response and Chemotherapy

We consider a dynamical model of cancer growth including three interacting cell populations of tumor cells, healthy host cells and immune effector cells. The tumor–immune and the tumor–host interactions are characterized to reproduce experimental results. A thorough dynamical analysis of the model is carried out, showing its capability to explain theoretical and empirical knowledge about tumor development. A chemotherapy treatment reproducing different experiments is also introduced. We believe that this simple model can serve as a foundation for the development of more complicated and specific cancer models.

Synchronization of uncoupled excitable systems induced by white and coloured noise

We study, both numerically and experimentally, the synchronization of uncoupled excitable systems due to a common noise. We consider two identical FitzHugh–Nagumo systems, which display both spiking and non-spiking behaviours in chaotic or periodic regimes. An electronic circuit provides a laboratory implementation of these dynamics. Synchronization is tested with both white and coloured noise, showing that coloured noise is more effective in inducing synchronization of the systems. We also study the effects on the synchronization of parameter mismatch and of the presence of intrinsic (not common) noise, and we conclude that the best performance of coloured noise is robust under these distortions.

Avoiding healthy cells extinction in a cancer model

We consider a dynamical model of cancer growth including three interacting cell populations of tumor cells, healthy host cells and immune effector cells. For certain parameter choice, the dynamical system displays chaotic motion and by decreasing the response of the immune system to the tumor cells, a boundary crisis leading to transient chaotic dynamics is observed. This means that the system behaves chaotically for a finite amount of time until the unavoidable extinction of the healthy and immune cell populations occurs. Our main goal here is to apply a control method to avoid extinction. For that purpose, we apply the partial control method, which aims to control transient chaotic dynamics in the presence of external disturbances. As a result, we have succeeded to avoid the uncontrolled growth of tumor cells and the extinction of healthy tissue. The possibility of using this method compared to the frequently used therapies is discussed.

Energy Harvesting Enhancement by Vibrational Resonance

The idea to use environmental energy to power electronic portable devices is becoming very popular in recent years. In fact, the possibility of not relying only on batteries can provide devices longer operating periods in a fully sustainable way. Vibrational kinetic energy is a reliable and widespread environmental energy, that makes it a suitable energy source to exploit. In this paper, we study the electrical response of a bistable system, by using a double-well Duffing oscillator, connected to a circuit through piezoceramic elements and driven by both a low (LF) and a high frequency (HF) forcing, where the HF forcing is the environmental vibration, while the LF is controlled by us. The response amplitude at low-frequency increases, reaches a maximum and then decreases for a certain range of HF forcing. This phenomenon is called vibrational resonance. Finally, we demonstrate that by enhancing the oscillations we can harvest more electric energy. It is important to take into account that by doing so with a forcing induced by us, the amplification effect is highly controllable and easily reproducible.

NONLINEAR RESPONSE OF THE MASS-SPRING MODEL WITH NONSMOOTH STIFFNESS

In this paper, we study the nonlinear response of the nonlinear mass-spring model with nonsmooth stiffness. For this purpose, we take as prototype model, a system that consists of the double-well smooth potential with an additional spring component acting on the system only for large enough displacement. We focus our study on the analysis of the homoclinic orbits for such nonlinear potential for which we observe the appearance of chaotic motion in the presence of damping effects and an external harmonic force, analyzing the crucial role of the linear spring in the dynamics of our system. The results are shown by using both the Melnikov analysis and numerical simulations. We expect our work to have implications on problems concerning the suspension of vehicles, among others.