Estimation of dynamical invariants without embedding by recurrence plots

In this paper we show that two dynamical invariants, the second order Renyi entropy and the correlation dimension, can be estimated from recurrence plots (RPs) with arbitrary embedding dimension and delay. This fact is interesting as these quantities are even invariant if no embedding is used. This is an important advantage of RPs compared to other techniques of nonlinear data analysis. These estimates for the correlation dimension and entropy are robust and, moreover, can be obtained at a low numerical cost. We exemplify our results for the Rossler system, the funnel attractor and the Mackey-Glass system. In the last part of the paper we estimate dynamical invariants for data from some fluid dynamical experiments and confirm previous evidence for low dimensional chaos in this experimental system. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.