Edgar Knobloch
Physics Department
University of California, Berkeley
Bursts
In this talk, I will review several mechanisms believed to explain the origin of bursting behavior in different physical systems. I will also describe a new mechanism that generates bursts close to the threshold of an oscillatory instability in systems with symmetry. The mechanism relies on the interaction between nearly degenerate modes brought about via forced symmetry breaking. After describing the properties of the resulting bursts I will discuss several experiments in which such bursts have been observed.