Chaotic Behavior of Current-Carrying Plasmas in External Periodic Oscillations

Abstract

A set of cascading bifurcations and a chaotic state in the presence of an external periodic oscillation are experimentally investigated in a current-carrying plasma. The measured bifurcation sequence leading to chaos, which is controlled by changing plasma densities and the frequencies of external oscillations, is in qualitative agreement with a theory which describes anharmonic systems in periodic fields.