Synchronization is a very generic process commonly observed in a large variety of dynamical systems which, however, has been rarely addressed in systems with low dissipation. Using the Rössler, the Lorenz 84, and the Sprott A systems as paradigmatic examples of strongly, weakly, and non-dissipative chaotic systems, respectively, we show that a parameter or frequency mismatch between two coupled such systems does not affect the synchronizability and the underlying structure of the joint attractor in the same way. By computing the Shannon entropy associated with the corresponding recurrence plots, we were able to characterize how two coupled nonidentical chaotic oscillators organize their dynamics in different dissipation regimes. While for strongly dissipative systems, the resulting dynamics exhibits a Shannon entropy value compatible with the one having an average parameter mismatch, for weak dissipation synchronization dynamics corresponds to a more complex behavior with higher values of the Shannon entropy. In comparison, conservative dynamics leads to a less rich picture, providing either similar chaotic dynamics or oversimplified periodic ones.
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The time averaged trace is calculated over 80 000 points taken along a trajectory in the chaotic attractor.
The visited volume is approximated by counting the pixels visited by 80 000 intersections with the Poincaré section (400 × 400 pixels2).