Riddled basins in a model for the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction

Calculations show that the basin of attraction of periodicity can be riddled with respect to the basin of chaos for two diffusively coupled CSTRs. This hinders the predictability of the attractor, since arbitrarily close to a point in phase space leading to periodicity there exists a point leading to chaos. Evidence and quantification is given by the uncertainty exponent and by sign-singular scaling behaviour. A single CSTR can display basins of attraction that are indistinguishable from riddled basins owing to the unavoidable limitations in computational or experimental accuracy. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.