Basin entropy as an indicator of a bifurcation in a time-delayed system

The basin entropy is a measure that quantifies, in a system that has two or more attractors, the predictability of a final state, as a function of the initial conditions. While the basin entropy has been demonstrated on a variety of multistable dynamical systems, to the best of our knowledge, it has not yet been tested in systems with a time delay, whose phase space is infinite dimensional because the initial conditions are functions defined in a time interval [−τ,0], where τ is the delay time. Here, we consider a simple time-delayed system consisting of a bistable system with a linear delayed feedback term. We show that the basin entropy captures relevant properties of the basins of attraction of the two coexisting attractors. Moreover, we show that the basin entropy can give an indication of the proximity of a Hopf bifurcation, but fails to capture the proximity of a pitchfork bifurcation. The Hopf bifurcation is detected because before the fixed points become unstable, a oscillatory, limit-cycle behavior appears that coexists with the fixed points. The new limit cycle modifies the structure of the basins of attraction, and this change is captured by basin entropy that reaches a maximum before the Hopf bifurcation. In contrast, the pitchfork bifurcation is not detected because the basins of attraction do not change as the bifurcation is approached. Our results suggest that the basin entropy can yield useful insights into the long-term predictability of time-delayed systems, which often have coexisting attractors.