Singularity Confinement and Chaos in Discrete Systems

Abstract

We present a number of second order maps, which pass the singularity confinement test commonly used to identify integrable discrete systems, but which nevertheless are non-integrable. As a more sensitive integrability test, we propose the analysis of the complexity (``algebraic entropy'') of the map using the growth of the degree of its iterates: integrability is associated with polynomial growth while the generic growth is exponential for chaotic systems.