Delay time modulation induced oscillating synchronization and intermittent anticipatory/lag and complete synchronizations in time-delay nonlinear dynamical systems

Abstract

Existence of a new type of oscillating synchronization that oscillates between three different types of synchronizations (anticipatory, complete, and lag synchronizations) is identified in unidirectionally coupled nonlinear time-delay systems having two different time-delays, that is feedback delay with a periodic delay time modulation and a constant coupling delay. Intermittent anticipatory, intermittent lag, and complete synchronizations are shown to exist in the same system with identical delay time modulations in both the delays. The transition from anticipatory to complete synchronization and from complete to lag synchronization as a function of coupling delay with suitable stability condition is discussed. The intermittent anticipatory and lag synchronizations are characterized by the minimum of the similarity functions and the intermittent behavior is characterized by a universal asymptotic -3/2 power law distribution. It is also shown that the delay time carved out of the trajectories of the time-delay system with periodic delay time modulation cannot be estimated using conventional methods, thereby reducing the possibility of decoding the message by phase space reconstruction.