period doubling
Period doubling
A scenario for the transition of a natural process from regular motion to chaos. Various natural processes develop in time in a way that depends upon prevailing environmental details. A quantity that specifies the particular state of the environment of a process is called a parameter, and is taken as a fixed value over the course of development of the process.
It is a frequent natural occurrence for a process to have a regular and easily describable motion for some range of parameters, but to have complex, irregular, and difficult-to-describe motions for other ranges of parameters. In the context of fluid flow, the latter circumstance is termed turbulence. In a more general context it is called chaos (which includes fluid turbulence but presages an underlying generality). See Fluid flow, Turbulent flow
Sometimes, as the environmental parameters are varied, a process may systematically exhibit more irregular motions, turning over into chaotic motion beyond some parameter value. In analogy to the phenomenology of phase transitions, this circumstance is termed a transition to chaos. There are a variety of qualitatively different transitions to chaos, each termed a scenario. Period doubling is one frequently encountered scenario leading to chaos for which a full theoretical account exists. Since it occurs in a wide variety of processes of significantly divergent physical characters (for example, fluid-flow, chemical reactions, and electronic devices), it is sensible to consider it as a phenomenon in its own right. See Phase transitions
In order to observe this scenario, it is sufficient that all but one parameter is held fixed. Over some range of this varied parameter (it shall be defined to increase over the range of investigation) the motion is observed to be periodic. Above a certain value of the parameter the motion grows more complicated (a bifurcation has occurred): after the amount of time T for which the motion exactly repeated itself just prior to the bifurcation, the motion now slightly fails to do so, exactly repeating, however, after another T seconds. That is, the period has doubled from T to 2T. As the parameter is further increased, the error to repeat after the first half of the new period systematically increases. A still further increase of parameter produces another bifurcation resulting in a new doubling of the period: the motion slightly fails to repeat after two roughly periodic cycles, exactly doing so after four. As the parameter is further increased, there are successive period-doubling bifurcations, more and more closely spaced in parameter value until at a critical value the doubling has occurred an infinite number of times, so that the motion is now no longer periodic and hence of a more complex character than had yet been encountered. Unpredictably complex motions occur for values of the parameter above its critical value, although ranges of parameter still exist for which the system exhibits new periodic motions. Indeed any period-doubling system exhibits the same sequence of truly chaotic motion and interspersed periodicities as its parameter increases. Thus there is a strong degree of qualitatively universal behavior for all systems experiencing this scenario.
However, there is also a precise quantitative universality. That is, without knowing the system (or its equations) essentially all measurable quantities can be predicted: By looking at the data alone, it would not be possible to guess the physical system responsible for that data. Thus, reminiscent of thermodynamics, questions can be posed and answered in a general manner that bypasses the specific mechanisms governing any particular system.