D. J. Jefferies and M. J. Crawford
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering,
University of Surrey,
Guildford GU2 5XH,
United Kingdom
Simple traps in one-dimensional piecewise-linear maps are described, and their properties under iteration are illustrated. Experimental electronics are described which iterate these maps in real time. Trapping consists of a sudden change of behaviour when a chaotic transient ceases and regular behaviour ensues. Experimentally, system noise is always important and can eject the system from a trap. The statistics of time to trapping are presented, and traps in higher dimensional systems are described. In the light of such simple experiments on trapping systems, the irregular and sometimes suddenly catastrophic events which occur in complex non-linear systems which may have high dimensionality become more understandable.