Bubbling transition as a mechanism of destruction of synchronous oscillations of identical microbubble contrast agents

Abstract

We study the process of the destruction of synchronous oscillations in a model of two interacting microbubble contrast agents exposed to an external ultrasound field. Completely synchronous oscillations in this model are possible in the case of identical bubbles when the governing system of equations possess a symmetry leading to the existence of a synchronization manifold. Such synchronous oscillations can be destructed without breaking the corresponding symmetry of the governing dynamical system. Here, we describe the phenomenological mechanism responsible for such destruction of synchronization and demonstrate its implementation in the studied model. We show that the appearance and expansion of transversally unstable areas in the synchronization manifold leads to the transformation of a synchronous chaotic attractor into a hyperchaotic one. We also demonstrate that this bifurcation sequence is stable with respect to symmetry breaking perturbations.