Hidden Chaos

Abstract

When a medium composed of microscopic elements is subjected to a high intensity field, the individual behaviors of microscopic elements can become chaotic. In such cases it is important to consider the effects of this irregularity at microscopical level onto the macroscopic behavior of the medium. We show that the macroscopic field produced by a large group of chaotic scatterers can remain regular, due to the partial or complete phase coherence of the scattering elements and the incoherence of the chaotic components of their responses. Thus when only macroscopic fields are observed, one may be unaware of chaotic microscopical motion, as it appears to be hidden from the observer. The coupling among the elements may lead to partial chaos synchronization, which exposes the chaotic nature of the system making the oscillations of macroscopic fields more irregular.