Scenario of the Birth of Hidden Attractors in the Chua Circuit

Recently it was shown that in the dynamical model of Chua circuit both the classical self-excited and hidden chaotic attractors can be found. In this paper the dynamics of the Chua circuit is revisited. The scenario of the chaotic dynamics development and the birth of self-excited and hidden attractors is studied. A pitchfork bifurcation is shown in which a pair of symmetric attractors coexist and merge into one symmetric attractor through an attractor-merging bifurcation and a splitting of a single attractor into two attractors. The scenario relating the subcritical Hopf bifurcation near equilibrium points and the birth of hidden attractors is discussed.