Experimental confirmation of the scaling theory for noise-induced crises

We investigate experimentally the scaling of the average time tau between intermittent, noise-induced bursts for a chaotic mechanical system near a crisis. The system studied is a periodically driven (frequency f) magnetoelastic ribbon. Theory predicts that for deterministic crises where tau-scales as tau approximately (f-f(c))-gamma (f < f(c), f = f(c) at crisis), the characteristic time between noise-induced bursts (f greater-than-or-equal-to f(c)) should scale as tau approximately sigma-gamma-g((f-f(c))/sigma), where sigma is the noise strength and gamma is the same in both cases. We determine gamma for the low-noise ("deterministic") system, then add noise and observe that the scaling for tau is as predicted.