Analytical description of recurrence plots of dynamical systems with nontrivial recurrences

In this paper we study recurrence plots (RPs) for the simplest example of nontrivial recurrences, namely in the case of a quasiperiodic motion. This case can be still studied analytically and constitutes a link between simple periodic and more complicated chaotic dynamics. Since we deal with nontrivial recurrences, the size of the neighborhood ¿ to which the trajectory must recur, is larger than zero. This leads to a nonzero width of the lines, which we determine analytically for both periodic and quasiperiodic motion. The understanding of such microscopic structures is important for choosing an appropriate threshold ¿ to analyze experimental data by means of RPs.