'Nonlinear Dynamics' is a course offered in the B. Tech. programs at School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.
Unit 1
Introduction: examples of dynamical systems, driven damped pendulum, ball on oscillating floor, dripping faucet, chaotic electrical circuits.
One-dimensional maps: the logistic map, bifurcations in the logistic map, fixed points and their stability, other one-dimensional maps.
Non-chaotic multidimensional flows: the logistic differential equation, driven damped harmonic oscillator, Van der Pol equation, numerical solution of differential equations.
Dynamical systems theory: two-dimensional equilibrium and their stability, saddle points, are contraction and expansion, non-chaotic three-dimensional attractors, stability of two-dimensional maps, chaotic dissipative flows.
Unit 2
Lyapunov exponents: for one- and two-dimensional maps and flows, for threedimensional flows, numerical calculation of largest Lyapunov exponent, Lyapunov exponent spectrum and general characteristics, Kaplan-Yorke dimension, numerical precautions.
Strange attractors: general properties, examples, search methods, probability of chaos and statistical properties of chaos, visualization methods, basins of attraction, structural stability.
Bifurcations: in one-dimensional maps and flows, Hopf bifurcations, homoclinic and heteroclinic bifurcations, crises.
Hamiltonian chaos: Hamilton’s equations and properties of Hamiltonian systems, examples, three-dimensional conservative flows, symplectic maps.
Unit 3
Time-series properties: examples, conventional linear methods, a case study, timedelay embeddings.
Nonlinear prediction and noise-reduction: linear predictors, state-space prediction, noise reduction, Lyapunov exponents from experimental data, false nearest neighbours
Fractals: Cantor sets, curves, trees, gaskets, sponges, landscapes.
Calculations of fractal dimension: similarity, capacity and correlation dimensions, entropy, BDS statistic, minimum mutual information, practical considerations.
Fractal measure and multifractals: convergence of the correlation dimension, multifractals, examples and numerical calculation of generalized dimensions.
Non-chaotic fractal sets: affine transformations, iterated functions systems, Mandelbrot and Julia sets.
Spatiotemporal chaos and complexity: examples, cellular automata, coupled map lattices, self-organized criticality.