Pulse Coupling Research Articles

Synchronization and Complex Dynamics of Oscillators with Delayed Pulse Coupling

Finger on the pulse: A systematic experimental study of pulse-coupled chemical oscillators with delay has confirmed a surprisingly large number of theoretical and mathematical predictions (see the dynamics for a pair of pulse-coupled oscillators; AP=antiphase (AP) and IP=in-phase oscillations, C=complex bursting dynamics, and OS=oscillator suppression). These results have implications for neuroscience and other biological fields.

Self-formed two-dimensional near-wavelength microstructures on copper induced by multipulse femtosecond vector optical fields

Two-dimensional near-wavelength microstructures have been fabricated on copper film by femtosecond vector optical fields with different spatial polarization distribution, at a central wavelength of 800 nm, a pulse duration of ∼70  fs, and a repetition rate of 1 kHz. In the induced microstructures, fine structures with interperpendicular orientations have been observed under the irradiation of a few pulses. Under the irradiation of the multipulse femtosecond vector field, differently from on the dielectric and semiconductor surfaces, the induced microstructures on the metallic copper surface exhibit an anisotropic extending feature dependent on the polarization distribution of the vector field. The physics behind this unique feature are the anisotropic excitation and propagation of surface plasmons, caused by the coupling of the subsequent irradiation pulses with the existing microstructure.

Guaranteeing global synchronization in networks with stochastic interactions

We design the interactions between oscillators communicating via variably delayed pulse coupling to guarantee their synchronization on arbitrary network topologies. We identify a class of response functions and prove convergence to network-wide synchrony from arbitrary initial conditions. Synchrony is achieved if the pulse emission is unreliable or intentionally probabilistic. These results support the design of scalable, reliable and energy-efficient communication protocols for fully distributed synchronization as needed, e.g., in mobile phone networks, embedded systems, sensor networks and autonomously interacting swarm robots.

Pulse‐Coupled Chemical Oscillators with Time Delay

Finger on the pulse: in a system of two pulse-coupled Belousov-Zhabotinsky oscillators, introducing a time delay or increasing the coupling strength brings about novel dynamic features (see picture, the two oscillators are shown in different colors), such as reversal of the roles of excitatory and inhibitory coupling or fast anti-phase oscillation. These features are not observed in diffusively coupled systems, and shed light on how such pulse coupling occurs at synapses.

Image identification method based on local time series of intersecting cortical model

The time series of Pulse Coupling Neural Network(PCNN) is widely used in the image retrieval and identification,but it cannot embody the shape and characteristics of the image,which results in the failure of image evaluation.In this paper,the local time series of cross visual cortex was proposed to solve the problem.Fist,the image was divided into blocks;then,the time series of each block was extracted;last,the local time series were linked to global time series.The proposed algorithm was compared with the basic time series and the time series added with edges information.The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can effectively and efficiently solve the problems existing in the basic time series.

Numerical Study of Lightning-Induced Currents on Buried Cables and Shield Wire Protection Method

In this paper, the two-step finite-difference time-domain method of solving full-wave Maxwell's equations is adopted to analyze the lightning electromagnetic pulse (LEMP) coupling to buried cables. The influences of lightning strike point, cable length, and ground conductivity on the LEMP coupling to buried cable are evaluated. The method of using shield wires to decrease the lightning-induced currents on the buried cables is proposed, and the protection efficiencies of different installing ways of the shield wires are evaluated. The numerical results show that when the lightning strike point is in the axial direction of the cable, the coupling is rather strong; the induced current acutely increases as the lightning strike point approaches the cable; when the length of the cable does not exceed about 150 m, the induced currents at the cable ends increase as the length increases, whereas once the length of the cable exceeds 150 m, the induced currents begin to decrease; the shield wires can effectively decrease the lightning-induced currents on the buried cables, closer the shield wire, greater the protection efficiency, and more shield wires provide greater protection efficiency.

Surface Treatment of Polyethylene Terephthalate Using Plasma Ion Implantation Based on Direct Coupling of RF and High-Voltage Pulse

Plasma immersion ion implantation employing hybrid radio-frequency (RF) and high-voltage (HV) pulses via a single feedthrough is an effective surface modification method. In this technique, the sample holder is connected to both the RF generator and the HV modulator in order to generate a high-density plasma in the vicinity of the sample. HV pulses are applied to the sample in between the RF pulses to conduct ion implantation. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) samples were modified using an C <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> H <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> plasma generated by this technique, and diamond-like-carbon films were successfully deposited. In this process, the pulsed HV changed from 2.5 to 10 kV with an RF power ranging from 0 to 150 W and an RF of 13.56 MHz. The C <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> H <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">2</sub> gas pressure was maintained at 1.0 Pa with a processing time of 15 min. Cleaning effects were observed without arcing damage with increasing sample bias from 2.5 to 10 kV. The negative bias and RF were observed to influence the water contact angles of treated PET samples. The plasma-implanted surface became more hydrophilic with increasing sample bias and RF power, respectively.

The influence of plasma density decreasement by pre-pulse on the laser wakefield acceleration

In the laser wakefield acceleration, the generation of electron beam is very sensitive to the plasma density. Not only the laser-wakefield interaction, but also the electron trapping and acceleration would be effected by the plasma density. However, the plasma density could be changed in the experiment by different reasons, which will result in the mismatch of parameters arranged initially. Forward Raman scattering spectrum demonstrated that the interaction density was decreased obviously in the experiment, which was verified by the pre-pulse conditions and two-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations. It was demonstrated that the plasma density was very important on the self-evolutions and energy coupling of laser pulse and wakefield, and eventually the energy spectrum of electron beam.

Cooling of a mirror in cavity optomechanics with a chirped pulse

We investigate the response of a harmonically confined mirror to an optical pulse in cavity optomechanics. We show that when the pulsed coupling strength takes the form of a chirped pulse, thermal fluctuations of the mirror can be significantly transferred to the cavity field. In addition, the frequency modulation of the pulse could enable a better cooling performance by suppressing the sensitivity of the dependence of detuning and pulse areas. Using numerical investigations, we find that the pulsed cooling is mainly limited by the cavity-field decay rate.

Self-synchronization of the integrate-and-fire pacemaker model with continuous couplings

The integrate-and-fire cardiac pacemaker model of the pulse coupled oscillators was introduced by C. Peskin. Due to the function of the pacemaker, two famous synchronization conjectures for identical and not identical oscillators were formulated. There are still many issues related to the nature and types of couplings. The couplings may be impulsive, continuous, delayed or advanced, and oscillators may be locally or globally connected. Consequently, it is reasonable to consider various ways of synchronization, if one wants the biological and mathematical analyses to interact productively. We investigate the integrate-and-fire model in both cases–one with identical, and another with not quite identical oscillators. A combination of continuous and pulse couplings that sustain the firing in unison is carefully constructed. Moreover, we obtain conditions on the parameters of continuous couplings that make possible a rigorous mathematical investigation of the problem. The technique developed for differential equations with discontinuities at non-fixed moments and a special continuous map lies on the basis of the analysis. This is the first analytically derived synchronization result for a model with continuous couplings. Illustrative examples are provided.

Numerical Simulation of Transient Gauss pulse Coupling through Small Apertures

Transient electromagnetic pulse (EMP) can easily couple into equipments through small apertures in its shells. To study the coupling effects of transient Gauss pulse to a cubic cavity with openings, coupling course is simulated using sub-gridding finite difference in time domain (FDTD) algorithm in this paper. A new grid partition approach is provided to simulate each kind of apertures with complex shapes. With this approach, the whole calculation space is modeled, and six kinds of aperture with different shapes are simulated. Coupling course is simulate in the whole time domain using sub-gridding FDTD approach. Selecting apertures with dimension of several millimeters to research, coupled electric field waveform, power density and coupling coefficient are calculated. The affect on coupling effects by varied incident angle and varied pulse width are also analyzed. The main conclusion includes interior resonance phenomenon, increase effect around rectangle aperture and several distributing rules of coupled electric field in the cavity. The correctness of these results is validated by comparing with other scholars' results. These numerical results can help us to understand coupling mechanism of the transient Gauss pulse.

Quantum-dot all-optical logic in a structured vacuum

We demonstrate multiwavelength channel optical logic operations on the Bloch vector of a quantum two-level system in the structured electromagnetic vacuum of a bimodal photonic crystal waveguide. This arises through a bichromatic strong-coupling effect that enables unprecedented control over single quantum-dot (QD) excitation through two beams of ultrashort femtojoule pulses. The second driving pulse (signal) with slightly different frequency and weaker strength than the first (holding) pulse leads to controllable strong modulation of the QD Bloch vector evolution path. This occurs through resonant coupling of the signal pulse with the Mollow sideband transitions created by the holding pulse. The movement of the Mollow sidebands during the passage of the holding pulse leads to an effective chirping in transition frequency seen by the signal. Bloch vector dynamics in the rotating frame of the signal pulse and within the dressed-state basis created by the holding pulse reveals that this chirped coupling between the signal pulse and the Mollow sidebands leads to either augmentation or negation of the final quantum-dot population (after pulse passage) compared to the outcome of the holding pulse alone and depending on the relative frequencies of the pulses. By making use of this extra degree of freedom for ultrafast control of QD excitations, applications in ultrafast all-optical logic and, or, and not gates are proposed in the presence of significant ($0.1$) THz nonradiative dephasing and (about 1%) inhomogeneous broadening.

Controlled cavity-assisted generation of single and entangled photons in semiconductor quantum dots

We propose a scheme, based on a single semiconductor quantum dot inside a microcavity, for the creation of single and entangled photons with controllable waveform. A lateral electric field allows to charge the quantum dot with a single electron, and breaks the usual optical selection rules. Our scheme utilizes cavity-assisted stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) in order to promote the surplus electron from the ground to the excited state, via excitation of a pump pulse and optical coupling to the charged exciton. This transfer is accompanied by a synchronized emission of a single-photon wavepacket, whose waveform can be controlled by the pump pulse. We investigate the influence of phonon scatterings, and show that they allow to reset the single-photon source. Finally, we propose a slight variant of our scheme which would allow for the creation of entangled multi-photon states. All our simulations are performed with realistic quantum dot and cavity parameters, which allows us to argue that our scheme can be implemented with state-of-the-art quantum dots and microcavities.

How structure determines correlations in neuronal networks.

Networks are becoming a ubiquitous metaphor for the understanding of complex biological systems, spanning the range between molecular signalling pathways, neural networks in the brain, and interacting species in a food web. In many models, we face an intricate interplay between the topology of the network and the dynamics of the system, which is generally very hard to disentangle. A dynamical feature that has been subject of intense research in various fields are correlations between the noisy activity of nodes in a network. We consider a class of systems, where discrete signals are sent along the links of the network. Such systems are of particular relevance in neuroscience, because they provide models for networks of neurons that use action potentials for communication. We study correlations in dynamic networks with arbitrary topology, assuming linear pulse coupling. With our novel approach, we are able to understand in detail how specific structural motifs affect pairwise correlations. Based on a power series decomposition of the covariance matrix, we describe the conditions under which very indirect interactions will have a pronounced effect on correlations and population dynamics. In random networks, we find that indirect interactions may lead to a broad distribution of activation levels with low average but highly variable correlations. This phenomenon is even more pronounced in networks with distance dependent connectivity. In contrast, networks with highly connected hubs or patchy connections often exhibit strong average correlations. Our results are particularly relevant in view of new experimental techniques that enable the parallel recording of spiking activity from a large number of neurons, an appropriate interpretation of which is hampered by the currently limited understanding of structure-dynamics relations in complex networks.

Evidence of surface plasmon resonance in ultrafast laser-induced ripples

The sensitivity of grating-coupled Surface Plasmon Polaritons (SPPs) on metallic surface has been exploited to investigate the correlation between ripples formation under ultrashort laser exposure and SPPs generation conditions. Systematic examination of coupling of single ultrashort laser pulse on gratings with appropriate periods ranging from 440 nm to 800 nm has been performed. Our approach reveals that a surface plasmon is excited only for an appropriate grating period, the nickel sample exhibits fine ripples pattern, evidencing the plasmonic nature of ripples generation. We propose a systematic investigation supported by a comprehensive study on the obtained modulation of such a coupling efficiency by means of a phenomenological Drude-Lorentz model which captures possible optical properties modification under femtosecond irradiation.

Effects of conduction delays on the existence and stability of one to one phase locking between two pulse-coupled oscillators.

Gamma oscillations can synchronize with near zero phase lag over multiple cortical regions and between hemispheres, and between two distal sites in hippocampal slices. How synchronization can take place over long distances in a stable manner is considered an open question. The phase resetting curve (PRC) keeps track of how much an input advances or delays the next spike, depending upon where in the cycle it is received. We use PRCs under the assumption of pulsatile coupling to derive existence and stability criteria for 1:1 phase-locking that arises via bidirectional pulse coupling of two limit cycle oscillators with a conduction delay of any duration for any 1:1 firing pattern. The coupling can be strong as long as the effect of one input dissipates before the next input is received. We show the form that the generic synchronous and anti-phase solutions take in a system of two identical, identically pulse-coupled oscillators with identical delays. The stability criterion has a simple form that depends only on the slopes of the PRCs at the phases at which inputs are received and on the number of cycles required to complete the delayed feedback loop. The number of cycles required to complete the delayed feedback loop depends upon both the value of the delay and the firing pattern. We successfully tested the predictions of our methods on networks of model neurons. The criteria can easily be extended to include the effect of an input on the cycle after the one in which it is received.

Gain and losses in THz quantum cascade laser with metal-metal waveguide

Coupling of broadband terahertz pulses into metal-metal terahertz quantum cascade lasers is presented. Mode matched terahertz transients are generated on the quantum cascade laser facet of subwavelength dimension. This method provides a full overlap of optical mode and active laser medium. A longitudinal optical-phonon depletion based active region design is investigated in a coupled cavity configuration. Modulation experiments reveal spectral gain and (broadband) losses. The observed gain shows high dynamic behavior when switching from loss to gain around threshold and is clamped at total laser losses.

Particle-in-cell simulation of outer magnetically insulated transmission line of Z-pinch accelerator

In order to implement the particle-in-cell(PIC) simulation of four outer magnetically insulated transmission lines(MITL) of Z-pinch accelerator, we adopt the backward-going transmission line voltage wave at the double post-hole convolute(DHPC) travelling in the outer MITL direction, which is gained in circuit simulation to model the part from DHPC to Z-pinch load. For the purpose of enhancing the accuracy of equivalent circuit model of DHPC and Z-pinch load, the backward-going transmission line voltage wave that is computed by circuit simulation is rescaled by PIC simulation. The insulator voltage and current waves that are obtained in the PIC simulation of four outer MITLs of PBFA Z can match the electrical measurements better than those obtained by the circuit simulation. Moreover, the influence of Z-pinch load implosion on the process of pulsed power coupling in the outer MILT is analyzed and explained.

Electromagnetic Pulse Coupling inside a Rectangular Enclosure with an Aperture

The transmission line matrix time domain (TLM-TD) method is used to simulate the electromagnetic pulse (EMP) cou-pled inside a shielding box with an aperture. Simulations for different electromagnetic pulses regarding to different rise time and fall time have been performed. The results for shielding effectiveness of these different excitations have been presented. A simple method that uses an extra metal for reducing the interference has also been proposed and tested.

Generation and optimization of electron currents along the walls of a conical target for fast ignition

The interaction of an ultraintense laser pulse with a conical target is studied by means of numerical particle-in-cell simulations in the context of fast ignition. The divergence of the fast electron beam generated at the tip of the cone has been shown to be a crucial parameter for the efficient coupling of the ignition laser pulse to the precompressed fusion pellet. In this paper, we demonstrate that a focused hot electron beam is produced at the cone tip, provided that electron currents flowing along the surfaces of the cone sidewalls are efficiently generated. The influence of various interaction parameters over the formation of these wall currents is investigated. It is found that the strength of the electron flows is enhanced for high laser intensities, low density targets, and steep density gradients inside the cone. The hot electron energy distribution obeys a power law for energies of up to a few MeV, with the addition of a high-energy Maxwellian tail.