We study and characterize a direct route to high-dimensional chaos (i.e. not
implying an intermediate low-dimensional attractor) of a system composed out of
three coupled Lorenz oscillators. A geometric analysis of this
medium-dimensional dynamical system is carried out through a variety of
numerical quantitative and qualitative techniques, that ultimately lead to the
reconstruction of the route. The main finding is that the transition is
organized by a heteroclinic explosion. The observed scenario resembles the
classical route to chaos via homoclinic explosion of the Lorenz model.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, 1 table. Extended version of [D. Pazo & M.A.
Matias, EPL 72, 176-182 (2005)
