Fluctuations of separation of trajectories in chaos and correlation dimension

Abstract: We consider the cumulant generating function of the logarithm of the distance between two infinitesimally close trajectories of a chaotic system. Its long-time behavior is given by the generalized Lyapunov exponent $\gamma(k)$ providing the logarithmic growth rate of the $k-$th moment of the distance. The Legendre transform of $\gamma(k)$ is a large deviations function that gives the probability of rare fluctuations where the logarithmic rate of change of the distance is much larger or much smaller than the mean rate defining the first Lyapunov exponent. The only non-trivial zero of $\gamma(k)$ is at minus the correlation dimension of the attractor which for incompressible flows reduces to the space dimension. We describe here general properties constraining the form of $\gamma(k)$ and the Gallavotti-Cohen type relations that hold when there is symmetry under time-reversal. This demands studying joint growth rates of infinitesimal distances and volumes. We demonstrate that quartic polynomial approximation for $\gamma(k)$ does not violate the Marcinkiewicz theorem on invalidity of polynomial form for the generating function. We propose that this quartic approximation will fit many experimental situations, not having the effective time-reversibility and the short correlation time properties of the quadratic Grassberger-Procaccia estimates. We take the existing $\gamma(k)$ for turbulent channel flow and demonstrate that the quartic fit is nearly perfect. The violation of time-reversibility for the Lagrangian trajectories of the incompressible Navier-Stokes turbulence below the viscous scale is considered. We demonstrate how the fit can be used for finding the correlation dimensions of strange attractors via easily measurable quantities. We provide a simple formula via the Lyapunov exponents, holding in quadratic approximation, and describe the construction of the quartic approximation.