Effect of a sub and supra-threshold periodic forcing an excitable glow discharge plasma near its bifurcation point

Abstract

In this paper non-linear dynamics of a periodically forced excitable glow discharge plasma has been studied. The experiments were performed in glow discharge plasma where excitability was achieved for suitable discharge voltage and gas pressure. The plasma was first perturbed by a sub-threshold sawtooth periodic signal, and we obtained small sub-threshold oscillations. These oscillations showed resonance when the frequency of the perturbation was around the characteristic frequency the plasma, and hence may be useful to estimate characteristic of an excitable system. On the other hand, when the perturbation was supra-threshold, system showed frequency entrainments. We obtained harmonic frequency entrainments for perturbation frequency greater than the characteristic frequency of the system and for lesser than the characteristic frequency, system showed only excitable behaviour.