Discontinuous transition to chaos in a canonical random neural network

Abstract

We study a paradigmatic random recurrent neural network introduced by Sompolinsky, Crisanti, and Sommers (SCS). In the infinite size limit, this system exhibits a direct transition from a homogeneous rest state to chaotic behavior, with the Lyapunov exponent gradually increasing from zero. We generalize the SCS model considering odd saturating nonlinear transfer functions, beyond the usual choice $\varphi (x)=\tanh x$. A discontinuous transition to chaos occurs whenever the slope of $\varphi$ at 0 is a local minimum (i.e., for ${\varphi }^{\prime \prime \prime }(0)>0$). Chaos appears out of the blue, by an attractor-repeller fold. Accordingly, the Lyapunov exponent stays away from zero at the birth of chaos.

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Irreversibility in Non-reciprocal Chaotic Systems