In the mathematical field of dynamical systems, an attractor is a set of states toward which a system tends to evolve,[2] for a wide variety of starting conditions of the system. System values that get close enough to the attractor values remain close even if slightly disturbed (View Highlight)
If a set of points is periodic or chaotic, but the flow in the neighborhood is away from the set, the set is not an attractor, but instead is called a repeller (or repellor). (View Highlight)
Some attractors are known to be chaotic (see strange attractor), in which case the evolution of any two distinct points of the attractor result in exponentially diverging trajectories, which complicates prediction when even the smallest noise is present in the system (View Highlight)
An attractor’s basin of attraction is the region of the phase space, over which iterations are defined, such that any point (any initial condition) in that region will asymptotically be iterated into the attractor (View Highlight)