title: Chaotically spiking canards in an excitable system with 2D inertial fast manifolds.
abstract: We introduce a new class of excitable systems with two-dimensional fast dynamics that includes inertia. A novel transition from excitability to relaxation oscillations is discovered where the usual Hopf bifurcation is followed by a cascade of period doubled and chaotic small excitable attractors and, as they grow, by a new type of canard explosion where a small chaotic background erratically but deterministically triggers excitable spikes. This scenario is also found in a model for a nonlinear Fabry-Perot cavity with one pendular mirror.
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Firenze, INFN, Sezione di Firenze, and LENS, Via Sansone 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Marino
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Marin
authors.forename: Salvador
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Balle
authors.forename: Oreste
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Piro