In systems close to the state of phase synchronization, the fast timescale of oscillations interacts with the slow timescale of the phase drift. As a result, “fast” dynamics is subjected to a slow modulation, due to which an autonomous system under fixed parameter values can imitate repeated bifurcational transitions. We demonstrate the action of this general mechanism for a set of two coupled autonomous chaotic oscillators and for a chaotic system perturbed by a periodic external force. In both cases, the Poincaré sections of phase portraits resemble bifurcation diagram of a logistic mapping with time-dependent parameter.

• Received 22 April 2001

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.65.026212