Exploring transient chaos in an NMR-laser experiment

Abstract
A time series analysis of transient chaos has been carried out in a laboratory experiment. The process is based on the construction of a long artifical time series obtained by gluing pieces of many transiently chaotic signals together. The strange saddle responsible for the transient chaotic behavior of an NMR laser has been reconstructed. Characteristics like dimension, Lyapunov exponent, and correlation function are determined showing that the motion on this set is more unstable than on the coexisting chaotic attractor.