Average lifetime and geometric properties for superlong chaotic transients in a hybrid optical bistable system

We study the geometric structure of superlong chaotic transients which have been observed in a hybrid optical bistable system, and demonstrate that the supertransients are due to the uncertainty exponent arbitrarily close to zero. It is reported that the average lifetime of chaotic transients increases with an increase of the Lyapunov dimension of the chaotic saddle. © 1996 The American Physical Society.