Symmetry-breaking on-off intermittency under modulation: Robustness of supersensitivity, resonance, and information gain

Nonlinear dynamical systems possessing an invariant subspace in the phase space and chaotic or stochastic motion within the subspace often display on-off intermittency close to the threshold of stability of the subspace. In a class of symmetric systems, the intermittency is symmetry breaking [Ying-Cheng Lai, Phys. Rev. E 53, R4267 (1996)]. We report interesting and practically important universal behavior of robustness of supersensitivity, resonance, and information gain in this class of systems when subjected to a weak modulation. While intermittent loss of synchronization may be harmful to the application of high-quality synchronization of coupled chaotic systems, the features reported here may lead to interesting application of on-off intermittency.