Unstable periodic orbits in a Faraday disk dynamo

Hide et al [2] introduced a system of three nonlinear coupled ordinary differential equations to model a self‐exciting Faraday disk homopolar dynamo. Two examples of chaotic behaviour were shown by them. Moroz [4] performed a more extensive analysis of this dynamo model, including bifurcation transition diagrams and unstable periodic orbits for the two chaotic examples. We now use these unstable periodic orbits to identify a possible template for the chaotic attractor, using ideas from topology [1] and results from a corresponding analysis of the Lorenz attractor. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)