Synchronization and chaos

We believe that synchronization and chaos are closely related. Common intuition suggests that when a circuit is off synchronization the observed output, although not periodic, will be a sum of periodic (intermodulation) components. In fact, at least for a large class of systems we have studied, the output does not have this relatively simple form but is actually chaotic. This paper studies a simple but realistic model for a large class of triggered oscillators. Theory and experiments both confirm that the output shows the properties of sensitivity to initial conditions, nonperiodicity, broad spectrum, and complicated recurrence, that characterize chaotic motion.