Up: Bifurcation

One-Dimensional Dynamical Systems

Part 5: Bifurcation

Orbit diagram

Now that you learned that a function can undergo bifurcations that change the qualitative dynamics, it is interesting to see how the dynamics really depends on the parameter. We want to visualize the relation between the dynamics of the Logistic map and the parameter lambda.

An enlargement of the orbit diagram for the Logistic family.

The picture above is called the orbit diagram for the Logistic family. It shows the eventual behavior of bounded orbits (that is, the orbits that do not just go off to infinity), as a function of the parameter. Question 3 from the homework asked you to make a partial sketch of this diagram. The values on the horizontal axis correspond to parameter values for lambda. The vertical values correspond to (eventual) iterates of an arbitrary point x0. If the eventual behavior of x0 is periodic, these iterates will repeat each other, and only a small number of points will be shown. For example, for lambda smaller than 3 there is only a single point for each value of lambda. This means that the orbit of x0 goes to an (attracting) fixed point of the Logistic map.

Let the computer draw the orbit diagram and answer the questions below; see the instructions for the Macintosh or other machines.


Up: Bifurcation

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Written by Hinke Osinga
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Created: Apr 6 1998 --- Last modified: Thu Apr 9 14:22:26 1998