Characterizing chaos in systems subjected to parameter drift

To characterize chaos in systems subjected to parameter drift, where a number of traditional methods do not apply, we propose viable alternative approaches, both in the qualitative and quantitative sense. Qualitatively, following stable and unstable foliations is shown to be efficient, which are easy to approximate numerically, without relying on the need for the existence of an analog of hyperbolic periodic orbits. Chaos originates from a Smale horseshoe-like pattern of the foliations, the transverse intersections of which indicate a chaotic set changing in time. In dissipative cases, the unstable foliation is found to be part of the so-called snapshot attractor, but the chaotic set is not dense on it if regular time-dependent attractors also exist. In Hamiltonian cases stable and unstable foliations turn out to be not equivalent due to the lack of time-reversal symmetry. It is the unstable foliation, which is found to correlate with the so-called snapshot chaotic sea. The chaotic set appears to be locally dense in this sea, while tori with originally quasiperiodic character might break up, their motion becoming chaotic as time goes on. A quantity called ensemble-averaged pairwise distance evaluated in relation to unstable foliations is shown to be an appropriate tool to provide the instantaneous strength of time-dependent chaos.