Devil’s Staircase and Power-Law Due to Desynchronization in a Laboratory Plasma

Abstract Applying a periodic external force to chaotic ionization waves in a laboratory plasma induces system transitions to a phase-synchronized state. Upon systematically varying the intensity and frequency of the applied periodic external force as control parameters, a devil’s staircase structure was observed in the desynchronization graph, which represents the time evolution of the phase difference and depicts the system’s return to its original state after phase synchronization. The average duration of the phase-synchronized state was examined by changing the parameters governing the system (i.e. the strength and frequency of the external force). The results revealed a power-law of type-I intermittency between the parameters and duration of the phase-synchronized state.