Chaotic itinerancy and power-law residence time distribution in stochastic dynamical system

To study a chaotic itinerant motion among varieties of ordered states, we propose a stochastic model based on the mechanism of chaotic itinerancy. The model consists of a random walk on a half-line, and a Markov chain with a transition probability matrix. To investigate the stability of attractor ruins in the model, we analyze the residence time distribution of orbits at attractor ruins. We show that the residence time distribution averaged by all attractor ruins is given by the superposition of (truncated) power-law distributions, if a basin of attraction for each attractor ruin has zero measure. To make sure of this result, we carry out a computer simulation for models showing chaotic itinerancy. We also discuss the fact that chaotic itinerancy does not occur in coupled Milnor attractor systems if the transition probability among attractor ruins can be represented as a Markov chain.