Rate and memory effects in bifurcation-induced tipping

Abstract

A variation in the environment of a system, such as the temperature, the concentration of a chemical solution, or the appearance of a magnetic field, may lead to a drift in one of the parameters. If the parameter crosses a bifurcation point, the system can tip from one attractor to another (bifurcation-induced tipping). Typically, this stability exchange occurs at a parameter value beyond the bifurcation value. This is what we call, here, the shifted stability exchange. We perform a systematic study on how the shift is affected by the initial parameter value and its change rate. To that end, we present numerical simulations and partly analytical results for different types of bifurcations and different paradigmatic systems. We show that the nonautonomous dynamics can be split into two regimes. Depending on whether we exceed the numerical or experimental precision or not, the system may enter the nondeterministic or the deterministic regime. This is determined solely by the conditions of the drift. Finally, we deduce the scaling laws governing this phenomenon and we observe very similar behavior for different systems and different bifurcations in both regimes.