On-off intermittency is an aperiodic switching between static, or laminar, behavior and chaotic bursts of oscillation. It can be generated by systems having an unstable invariant (or quasi-invariant) manifold, within which is found a suitable attractor. We clarify the roles of such attractors in producing intermittency, provide examples, and relate them to previous work.

• Received 19 May 1992

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.70.279