Active search for Bifurcations

What in dynamical systems is called a bifurcation, in a laboratory setting (or in nature) is perceived as a qualitative change in the long-term observed dynamic behavior, sometimes dramatic. Pinpointing the location of these phenomena in state parameter space, and deciphering the nature of the underlying transitions, has been the focus of significant scientific effort for decades, e.g. in Biology [21, 17, 26, 54, 62, 32, 15]) or Chemistry [1, 48, 18, 76, 11, 46, 37]. In fact, accurate location of bifurcation points remains an active field of research computationally and experimentally [3]. When a reliable mathematical model is available, one can locate bifurcations either analytically (if the model is simple enough) or through scientific computing, e.g. in the context of numerical continuation. Such approaches reduce to the numerical solution of a system of (deterministic) equations that characterize bifurcations of a certain type [19, 13, 41].