Bistability, hysteresis and transitions to chaos in a model of coherent, unimolecular excitation

A model describing the dynamics of an irradiated SF/sub 6/ molecule was previously shown to yield chaotic trajectories. The authors found that neutrally stable oscillatory states are also possible within windows of the parameter space. When dissipation is added to the model, they found bistability, both between fixed points and limit cycles, and between limit cycles and other limit cycles. By dynamically varying the laser detuning, the authors prove that hysteresis cycles result