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Main Authors: Tzepos, Dimitrios, Magnes, Jenny
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06137
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author Tzepos, Dimitrios
Magnes, Jenny
author_facet Tzepos, Dimitrios
Magnes, Jenny
contents The Caenorhabditis Elegans (C.elegans) nematodes have long been a model organism for quantitative behavioral analysis, due to their tractable nervous system and well-characterized genetics. In particular, dynamic diffraction has been a successful method of studying said microorganisms due to its low level of noise and the ability to simultaneously study multiple degrees of freedom of their neuromuscular system through their locomotion. In this study, we estimate the Lyapunov spectrum of C.elegans locomotion, which offers an insight into how volume elements evolve in the phase space of the underlying dynamical system. For that, we used the Sano-Sawada algorithm to estimate the spectra from the trajectories reconstructed using the Takens embedding procedure. In total, two positive and one negative exponents were calculated and verified to be non-spurious through investigations of their stability for different sets of parameters. Those exponents have values of 0.860, 0.389, and -3.451 respectively. The presence of two positive exponents indicates that C.elegans locomotion is hyperchaotic, while the total sum being negative indicates that the system is dissipative and non-Hamiltonian. Those are key observations for the underlying system and will be significant for the potential creation of future mathematical or computational models.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_06137
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Examining the evolution of phase-space elements for C.elegans locomotion
Tzepos, Dimitrios
Magnes, Jenny
Chaotic Dynamics
The Caenorhabditis Elegans (C.elegans) nematodes have long been a model organism for quantitative behavioral analysis, due to their tractable nervous system and well-characterized genetics. In particular, dynamic diffraction has been a successful method of studying said microorganisms due to its low level of noise and the ability to simultaneously study multiple degrees of freedom of their neuromuscular system through their locomotion. In this study, we estimate the Lyapunov spectrum of C.elegans locomotion, which offers an insight into how volume elements evolve in the phase space of the underlying dynamical system. For that, we used the Sano-Sawada algorithm to estimate the spectra from the trajectories reconstructed using the Takens embedding procedure. In total, two positive and one negative exponents were calculated and verified to be non-spurious through investigations of their stability for different sets of parameters. Those exponents have values of 0.860, 0.389, and -3.451 respectively. The presence of two positive exponents indicates that C.elegans locomotion is hyperchaotic, while the total sum being negative indicates that the system is dissipative and non-Hamiltonian. Those are key observations for the underlying system and will be significant for the potential creation of future mathematical or computational models.
title Examining the evolution of phase-space elements for C.elegans locomotion
topic Chaotic Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.06137