Cantisan, JuliaSeoane, Jesús M.F. Sanjuan, Miguel A.2023-12-122023-12-122021Julia Cantisán et al 2021 J. Phys. Complex. 2 025001https://hdl.handle.net/10115/27126External and internal factors may cause a system's parameter to vary with time before it stabilizes. This drift induces a regime shift when the parameter crosses a bifurcation. Here, we study the case of an infinite dimensional system: a time-delayed oscillator whose time delay varies at a small but non-negligible rate. Our research shows that due to this parameter drift, trajectories from a chaotic attractor tip to other states with a certain probability. This causes the appearance of the phenomenon of transient chaos. By using an ensemble approach, we find a gamma distribution of transient lifetimes, unlike in other non-delayed systems where normal distributions have been found to govern the process. Furthermore, we analyze how the parameter change rate influences the tipping probability, and we derive a scaling law relating the parameter value for which the tipping takes place and the lifetime of the transient chaos with the parameter change rate.Attribution 4.0 Internationalhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/article10.1088/2632-072X/abd67binfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess