Bistable chaos. I. Unfolding the cusp.

We describe a simple and intuitive model that relates the catastrophe theory unfolding of a double-well potential with the unfolding of a bimodal map characterizing the dynamics of an autonomous chaotic Van der Pol-Duffing oscillator. The construction of the model was facilitated by developing an analogy with the stochastic dynamics of a particle in a double-well potential. Experimental evidence supporting the model is given