Observability of lag synchronization of coupled chaotic oscillators

Lag synchronization is a recently discovered theoretical phenomenon where the dynamical variables of two coupled, nonidentical chaotic oscillators are synchronized with a time delay relative to each other. We investigate experimentally and numerically to what extent lag synchronization can be observed in physical systems where noise is inevitable. Our measurements and numerical computation suggest that lag synchronization is typically destroyed when the noise level is comparable to the amount of average system mismatch. At small noise levels, lag synchronization occurs in an intermittent fashion.