Synchronization is the process of achieving identical dynamics among coupled
identical units. If the units are different from each other, their dynamics
cannot become identical; yet, after transients, there may emerge a functional
relationship between them -- a phenomenon termed "generalized synchronization."
Here, we show that the concept of transient uncoupling, recently introduced for
synchronizing identical units, also supports generalized synchronization among
nonidentical chaotic units. Generalized synchronization can be achieved by
transient uncoupling even when it is impossible by regular coupling. We
furthermore demonstrate that transient uncoupling stabilizes synchronization in
the presence of common noise. Transient uncoupling works best if the units stay
uncoupled whenever the driven orbit visits regions that are locally diverging
in its phase space. Thus, to select a favorable uncoupling region, we propose
an intuitive method that measures the local divergence at the phase points of
the driven unit's trajectory by linearizing the flow and subsequently
suppresses the divergence by uncoupling
