A novel chaotic system with one source and two saddle-foci in Hopfield neural networks

This paper presents the finding of a novel chaotic system with one source and two saddle-foci in a simple three-dimensional (3D) autonomous continuous time Hopfield neural network. In particular, the system with one source and two saddle-foci has a chaotic attractor and a periodic attractor with different initial points, which has rarely been reported in 3D autonomous systems. The complex dynamical behaviours of the system are further investigated by means of a Lyapunov exponent spectrum, phase portraits and bifurcation analysis. By virtue of a result of horseshoe theory in dynamical systems, this paper presents rigorous computer-assisted verifications for the existence of a horseshoe in the system for a certain parameter.