Generic generation of noise-driven chaos in stochastic time delay systems: Bridging the gap with high-end simulations

Abstract

Nonlinear time delay systems produce inherently delay-induced periodic oscillations, which are, however, too idealistic compared to observations. We exhibit a unified stochastic framework to systematically rectify such oscillations into oscillatory patterns with enriched temporal variabilities through generic, nonlinear responses to stochastic perturbations. Two paradigms of noise-driven chaos in high dimension are identified, fundamentally different from chaos triggered by parameter-space noise. Noteworthy is a low-dimensional stretch-and-fold mechanism, leading to stochastic strange attractors exhibiting horseshoe-like structures mirroring turbulent transport of passive tracers. The other is high-dimensional, with noise acting along the critical eigendirection and transmitted to “deeper” stable modes through nonlinearity, leading to stochastic attractors exhibiting swarm-like behaviors with power-law and scale break properties. The theory is applied to cloud delay models to parameterize missing physics such as intermittent rain and Lagrangian turbulent effects. The stochastically rectified model reproduces with fidelity complex temporal variabilities of open-cell oscillations exhibited by high-end cloud simulations.