Elementary chaotic snap flows

Hyperjerk systems with 4th-order derivative of the form x = f(x,x,x,x) have been referred to as snap systems. Five new elementary chaotic snap flows and a generalization of an existing flow are presented through an extensive numerical search. Four of these flows demonstrate elegant simplicity of a single control parameter based on a single nonlinearity of a quadratic, a piecewise-linear or an exponential type. Two others demonstrate elegant simplicity of all unity-in-magnitude parameters based on either a single cubic nonlinearity or three cubic nonlinearities. The chaotic snap flow with a single cubic nonlinearity requires only two terms and can be transformed to its equivalent dynamical form of only five terms which have a single nonlinearity. An advantage is that such a chaotic flow offers only five terms even though the (four) dimension is high. Three of the chaotic snap flows are characterized as conservative systems whilst three others are dissipative systems. Basic dynamical properties are described. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.