Attractor Reconstruction

Correlation dimension, Lyapunov exponent, attractor filling
dynamicaldim phase space4 metrics

What It Measures

The dimension and divergence rate of the signal's phase-space attractor.

Delay-embeds the time series (at dimensions 2 through 8 for correlation dimension, up to 10 for Lyapunov exponent) using the first zero-crossing of the autocorrelation as the lag. In this reconstructed space, applies Grassberger-Procaccia to estimate the correlation dimension D2 (how many dimensions the attractor fills) and Rosenstein's method to estimate the maximum Lyapunov exponent (how fast nearby trajectories diverge).

Metrics

correlation_dimension

How many effective dimensions does the attractor fill? Collatz Stopping Times leads at 4.22: its complex branching dynamics fill a roughly 4D manifold. Neural Net Dense (4.02) and ECG Supraventricular (4.01) are similarly high-dimensional. The Lorenz attractor sits around 2.05 (textbook D2 for the Lorenz system). Constants and Fibonacci Word score 0.0 — degenerate point or 1D attractors.

d2_saturation

Does the dimension estimate converge as you increase the embedding dimension? Champernowne (0.997) and Triangle Wave (0.997) saturate immediately — their low intrinsic dimension is captured at the lowest embedding. Collatz Parity scores 0.0 (dimension never converges, suggesting the signal doesn't live on a finite-dimensional manifold). High saturation means you can trust the D2 estimate; low saturation means the attractor is higher-dimensional than the embedding can capture.

filling_ratio

What fraction of the embedding space does the trajectory actually visit? Dice Rolls (0.994) and XorShift32 (0.982) fill almost all of it — they're space-filling in delay coordinates. Logistic Period-2 scores 0.002 (the trajectory visits only two points in any embedding). This separates low-dimensional attractors from space-filling noise.

lyapunov_max

The maximum Lyapunov exponent: how fast do nearby trajectories diverge? Positive means chaos (exponential separation), zero means periodic or quasiperiodic, negative means contracting. Henon Near-Crisis leads at 0.106: it's on the edge of destruction, with maximum divergence. Financial returns (Nikkei -0.003, NYSE -0.0003) are slightly negative — they're mean-reverting on short timescales.

Atlas Rankings

correlation_dimension
SourceDomainValue
Collatz Stopping Timesnumber_theory4.2236
Neural Net (Dense)binary4.0161
ECG Supraventr.medical4.0060
···
Constant 0xFFnoise0.0000
Constant 0x00noise0.0000
Fibonacci Wordexotic0.0000
d2_saturation
SourceDomainValue
Champernownenumber_theory0.9971
Triangle Wavewaveform0.9969
Devil's Staircaseexotic0.9909
···
Constant 0xFFnoise0.0000
Constant 0x00noise0.0000
Collatz Paritynumber_theory0.0000
filling_ratio
SourceDomainValue
Dice Rollsexotic0.9939
XorShift32binary0.9825
RANDUbinary0.9821
···
Constant 0xFFnoise0.0000
Constant 0x00noise0.0000
Logistic r=3.2 (Period-2)chaos0.0020
lyapunov_max
SourceDomainValue
Henon Near-Crisis (a=1.2)chaos0.1059
Logistic r=3.68 (Banded Chaos)chaos0.0959
Henon Mapchaos0.0896
···
Nikkei Returnsfinancial-0.0032
NYSE Returnsfinancial-0.0003
Circle Map Quasiperiodicchaos-0.0001

When It Lights Up

Attractor Reconstruction provides the classic chaos diagnostic: positive Lyapunov with finite correlation dimension means deterministic chaos. The framework uses it alongside Gottwald-Melbourne (which doesn't need embedding) as a cross-check. In the atlas, correlation_dimension separates the dynamical view's low-dimensional chaos cluster (D2 = 2-4: Lorenz, Rossler, Henon) from noise (D2 saturates at embedding dimension) and periodicity (D2 = 1). The filling_ratio metric complements this by detecting whether the trajectory is confined to a manifold or fills the space uniformly.

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