A comparative study of the dynamics of a three-disk dynamo system with and without time delay

Abstract

The disk dynamo plays an important role in studying the geodynamo and much research works have been devoted to the understanding of dynamo dynamics. This paper further investigates an extended disk dynamo system having three coupled conducting disks and incorporates the interaction-induced time delay in the dynamic governing equations. By carrying out a comparative analysis, the dynamic behaviors of the coupled three-disk dynamo system with and without time delay are studied to explore novel and complex nonlinear dynamic phenomena in the coupled delayed dynamo system. It is found that the double Hopf bifurcations can be induced in the time-delayed dynamo system. Three different topological structures of the unfolding are obtained under different time delays. Accordingly, it is shown that the novel dynamic behaviors, including quasi-periodic torus, three-dimensional torus and the coexistence of multiple attractors, can appear in the time-delayed dynamo system. Furthermore, by performing the continuation analysis on the periodic orbit generated from the Hopf bifurcation of equilibrium, some new coexistence patterns, e.g., the coexistence of periodic orbits and chaos, the coexistence of quasi-periodic orbits and chaos, are observed in the dynamo system with time delay. Based on the obtained results, it is believed that the inclusion of time delay in the modelling of the three-disk dynamo system is necessary and meaningful for developing an in-depth understanding of dynamo dynamics. Finally, the results of theoretical analyses are verified by the numerical simulations.