Chaos Driven by Interfering Memory

Stéphane Perrard (1) , Matthieu Labousse (2) , Emmanuel Fort (2) , Yves Couder (1)

1 MSC - Matière et Systèmes Complexes
2 IL - Institut Langevin - Ondes et Images (UMR7587)

The transmission of information can couple two entities of very different nature, one of them serving as a memory for the other. Here we study the situation in which information is stored in a wave field and serves as a memory that pilots the dynamics of a particle. Such a system can be implemented by a bouncing drop generating surface waves sustained by a parametric forcing. The motion of the resulting "walker" when confined in a harmonic potential well is generally disordered. Here we show that these trajectories correspond to chaotic regimes characterized by intermittent transitions between a discrete set of states. At any given time, the system is in one of these states characterized by a double quantization of size and angular momentum. A low dimensional intermittency determines their respective probabilities. They thus form an eigenstate basis of decomposition for what would be observed as a superposition of states if all measurements were intrusive.

Mots clés: boucing drops; chaos; eigenstates

Domaines: Physique Générale [physics.gen-ph]

Stéphane Perrard, Matthieu Labousse, Emmanuel Fort, Yves Couder. Chaos Driven by Interfering Memory. Physical Review Letters, 2014, 113, pp.104101. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevLett.113.104101⟩. ⟨hal-01061415⟩