Multistable ghost attractors in a switching laser system.

This paper studies the effects of a switching parameter on the dynamics of a multistable laser model. The laser model represents multistability in distinct ranges of parameters. We assume that the system's parameter switches periodically between different values. Since the system is multistable, the presence of a ghost attractor is also dependent on the initial condition. It is shown that when the composing subsystems are chaotic, a periodic ghost attractor can emerge and vice versa, depending on the initial conditions. In contrast to the previous studies in which the attractor of the fast blinking systems approximates the average attractor, here, the blinking attractor differs from the average in some cases. It is shown that when the switching parameter values are distant from their average, the blinking and the average attractors are different, and as they approach, the blinking attractor approaches the average attractor too.