Chronotaxic Systems: A Simple Paradigm to Treat Time-Dependent Oscillatory Dynamics Stable under Continuous Perturbation

Abstract

The treatment of non-autonomous systems is a challenging task, and one that arises in many branches of physics and science in general. The recently introduced notion of chronotaxic systems provides a new and promising approach to the problem. Chronotaxic dynamics is characterized by a time-dependent point attractor which exists in the time-dependent contraction region. Chronotaxic systems are therefore capable of resisting continuous external perturbations while being characterised by complex time-dependent dynamics. The theory of chronotaxic systems, reviewed in this paper, together with corresponding inverse approach methods developed to tackle such systems, makes it possible to identify the underlying deterministic dynamics and to extract it. The resultant reduction of complexity may be useful in various scientific applications, especially in living systems.