Failure in distinguishing colored noise from chaos using the “noise titration” technique

Identifying chaos in experimental data-noisy data-remains a challenging problem for which conclusive arguments are still very difficult to provide. In order to avoid problems usually encountered with techniques based on geometrical invariants (dimensions, Lyapunov exponent, etc.), Poon and Barahona introduced a numerical titration procedure which compares one-step-ahead predictions of linear and nonlinear models [Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 98, 7107 (2001)]. We investigate the aformentioned technique in the context of colored noise or other types of nonchaotic behaviors. The main conclusion is that in several examples noise titration fails to distinguish such nonchaotic signals from low-dimensional deterministic chaos.