Irrationality and quasiperiodicity in driven nonlinear systems

We analyze the relationship between irrationality and quasiperiodicity in nonlinear driven systems. To that purpose, we consider a nonlinear system whose steady-state response is very sensitive to the periodic or quasiperiodic character of the input signal. In the infinite time limit, an input signal consisting of two incommensurate frequencies will be recognized by the system as quasiperiodic. We show that this is, in general, not true in the case of finite interaction times. An irrational ratio of the driving frequencies of the input signal is not sufficient for it to be recognized by the nonlinear system as quasiperiodic, resulting in observations which may differ by several orders of magnitude from the expected quasiperiodic behavior. Thus, the system response depends on the nature of the irrational ratio, as well as the observation time. We derive a condition for the input signal to be identified by the system as quasiperiodic. Such a condition also takes into account the sub-Fourier response of the nonlinear system.