ABRUPT DIMENSION CHANGES AT BASIN BOUNDARY METAMORPHOSES

Basin boundaries in chaotic dynamical systems can be either smooth or fractal. As a system parameter changes, the structure of the basin boundary also changes. In particular, the dimension of the basin boundary changes continuously except when a basin boundary metamorphosis occurs, at which it can change abruptly. We present numerical experiments to demonstrate such sudden dimension changes. We have also used a one-dimensional analytic calculation and a two-dimensional qualitative model to explain such changes.