Experimental evidence of a hard transition to chaos

A generic, sudden transition to chaos has been experimentally verified using electronic circuits. The particular system studied involves the near resonance of two coupled oscillators at 2:1 frequency ratio when the damping of the first oscillator becomes negative. We identified in the experiment all types of orbits described by theory. We also found that a theoretical, ID limit map fits closely a map of the experimental attractor which, however, could be strongly disturbed by noise. In particular, we found noisy periodic orbits, in good agreement with noise theory.