Globally Coupled Research Articles

Chimera states in bursting neurons.

We study the existence of chimera states in pulse-coupled networks of bursting Hindmarsh-Rose neurons with nonlocal, global, and local (nearest neighbor) couplings. Through a linear stability analysis, we discuss the behavior of the stability function in the incoherent (i.e., disorder), coherent, chimera, and multichimera states. Surprisingly, we find that chimera and multichimera states occur even using local nearest neighbor interaction in a network of identical bursting neurons alone. This is in contrast with the existence of chimera states in populations of nonlocally or globally coupled oscillators. A chemical synaptic coupling function is used which plays a key role in the emergence of chimera states in bursting neurons. The existence of chimera, multichimera, coherent, and disordered states is confirmed by means of the recently introduced statistical measures and mean phase velocity.

Transient and periodic spatiotemporal structures in a reaction-diffusion-mechanics system.

We study transient spatiotemporal structures induced by a weak space-time localized stimulus in an excitable contractile fiber within a two-component globally coupled reaction-diffusion model. The model which we develop allows us to analyze various regimes of excitation spreading and determine origin of the induced structures for various contraction types (defined by the fiber fixation) and global coupling strengths. One of the most notable effects we observed is the after-excitation effect. It leads to emergence of multiple excitation pulses excited by a single external stimulus and can result in long-lasting transient activity and appearance of new oscillatory attractor regimes, including the ones with multiple phase clusters.

Chimeras in globally coupled oscillatory systems: From ensembles of oscillators to spatially continuous media.

We study an oscillatory medium with a nonlinear global coupling that gives rise to a harmonic mean-field oscillation with constant amplitude and frequency. Two types of cluster states are found, each undergoing a symmetry-breaking transition towards a related chimera state. We demonstrate that the diffusional coupling is non-essential for these complex dynamics. Furthermore, we investigate localized turbulence and discuss whether it can be categorized as a chimera state.

Impact of symmetry breaking in networks of globally coupled oscillators.

We analyze the consequences of symmetry breaking in the coupling in a network of globally coupled identical Stuart-Landau oscillators. We observe that symmetry breaking leads to increased disorderliness in the dynamical behavior of oscillatory states and consequently results in a rich variety of dynamical states. Depending on the strength of the nonisochronicity parameter, we find various dynamical states such as amplitude chimera, amplitude cluster, frequency chimera, and frequency cluster states. In addition we also find disparate transition routes to recently observed chimera death states in the presence of symmetry breaking even with global coupling. We also analytically verify the chimera death region, which corroborates the numerical results. These results are compared with that of the symmetry-preserving case as well.

Population Dynamics of Globally Coupled Degrade-and-Fire Oscillators

This paper reports the analysis of a model of pulse-coupled oscillators with global inhibitory coupling, inspired by experiments on colonies of bacteria-embedded synthetic genetic circuits. Populations are represented by one-dimensional profiles and their time evolution is governed by a singular differential equation. We address the initial value problem and characterize the dynamics’ main features. In particular, we prove that all trajectory behaviors are asymptotically periodic, with asymptotic features only depending on the population cluster distribution and on the model parameters. A criterion is obtained for the existence of attracting periodic orbits, which reveals the existence of a sharp transition as the coupling parameter is increased. The transition separates a regime where any cluster distribution can be obtained in the limit of large times, to a situation where only trajectories with sufficiently large groups of synchronized oscillators perdure.

Amplitude-phase coupling drives chimera states in globally coupled laser networks.

For a globally coupled network of semiconductor lasers with delayed optical feedback, we demonstrate the existence of chimera states. The domains of coherence and incoherence that are typical for chimera states are found to exist for the amplitude, phase, and inversion of the coupled lasers. These chimera states defy several of the previously established existence criteria. While chimera states in phase oscillators generally demand nonlocal coupling, large system sizes, and specially prepared initial conditions, we find chimera states that are stable for global coupling in a network of only four coupled lasers for random initial conditions. The existence is linked to a regime of multistability between the synchronous steady state and asynchronous periodic solutions. We show that amplitude-phase coupling, a concept common in different fields, is necessary for the formation of the chimera states.

Clustering as a prerequisite for chimera states in globally coupled systems.

The coexistence of coherently and incoherently oscillating parts in a system of identical oscillators with symmetrical coupling, i.e., a chimera state, is even observable with uniform global coupling. We address the question of the prerequisites for these states to occur in globally coupled systems. By analyzing two different types of chimera states found for nonlinear global coupling, we show that a clustering mechanism to split the ensemble into two groups is needed as a first step. In fact, the chimera states inherit properties from the cluster states in which they originate. Remarkably, they can exist in parameter space between cluster and chaotic states, as well as between cluster and synchronized states.

Amplitude death in coupled robust-chaos oscillators

We investigate the synchronization behavior of a system of globally coupled, continuous-time oscillators possessing robust chaos. The local dynamics corresponds to the Shimizu-Morioka model where the occurrence of robust chaos in a region of its parameter space has been recently discovered. We show that the global coupling can drive the oscillators to synchronization into a fixed point created by the coupling, resulting in amplitude death in the system. The existence of robust chaos allows to introduce heterogeneity in the local parameters, while guaranteeing the functioning of all the oscillators in a chaotic mode. In this case, the system reaches a state of oscillation death, with coexisting clusters of oscillators in different steady states. The phenomena of amplitude death or oscillation death in coupled robust-chaos flows could be employed as mechanisms for stabilization and control in systems that require reliable operation under chaos.

Asymptotic theory of a large fiber-laser array passive phase locking.

Coherent laser beam combining is a potentially attractive way to increase the combined beam brightness beyond the technological limits to single-mode fiber lasers. Passive phase locking (PPL) does not need external management and leads to strong simplification of the system. A specific feature of fiber amplifiers and lasers is that they possess optical path differences of the magnitude of many wavelengths. The involved problem in the PPL approach is to specify an ultimate limit to the phase-locked laser-array size. Earlier studies confirm the stabilizing role of gain saturation on beam-combining efficiency. The purpose of our study is to decipher the desired effect of nonlinearity on the combining efficiency in two architectures of a globally coupled fiber-laser array: (I)an array of amplifiers in ring resonator configuration with spatially filtered feedback; (II)an array of lasers also with external feedback. The external-cavity feedback in both systems results in global coupling, i.e., each element is coherently coupled to all the others. A semi-analytical approach based on the probability theory is developed to calculate the probability density for the efficiency as a function of system parameters in both ensembles. Comparison between (I) and (II) arrays indicates that the II-type arrays demonstrate better characteristics while scaling the array size.

Stability of the synchronized network of Hindmarsh–Rose neuronal models with nearest and global couplings

We analytically and numerically investigate a set of N identical and non-identical Hindmarsh–Rose neuronal models with nearest-neighbor and global couplings. The stability boundary of the synchronized states is analyzed using the Master Stability Function approach for the case of identical oscillators (complete synchronization) and the Kuramoto order parameter for the disordered case (phase synchronization). We find that, through a linear coupling modeling electrical synapses, complete synchronization occurs in a system of many nearest-neighbor or globally coupled identical oscillators, and in the case of non-identical neurons it is stable even in the presence of a spread of the parameters. We find that the Hindmarsh–Rose neuronal models can synchronize when coupled through the action of potential variable or through the interaction by rapid flows of ions through the membrane. The degree of connectivity of the network favors synchronization: in the global coupling case, the threshold for the in-phase state stabilizes when the number of dynamical units increases. The transition from disordered to the ordered state is a second order dynamical phase transition, although very sharp.

Globally coupled stochastic two-state oscillators: fluctuations due to finite numbers.

Infinite arrays of coupled two-state stochastic oscillators exhibit well-defined steady states. We study the fluctuations that occur when the number N of oscillators in the array is finite. We choose a particular form of global coupling that in the infinite array leads to a pitchfork bifurcation from a monostable to a bistable steady state, the latter with two equally probable stationary states. The control parameter for this bifurcation is the coupling strength. In finite arrays these states become metastable: The fluctuations lead to distributions around the most probable states, with one maximum in the monostable regime and two maxima in the bistable regime. In the latter regime, the fluctuations lead to transitions between the two peak regions of the distribution. Also, we find that the fluctuations break the symmetry in the bimodal regime, that is, one metastable state becomes more probable than the other, increasingly so with increasing array size. To arrive at these results, we start from microscopic dynamical evolution equations from which we derive a Langevin equation that exhibits an interesting multiplicative noise structure. We also present a master equation description of the dynamics. Both of these equations lead to the same Fokker-Planck equation, the master equation via a 1/N expansion and the Langevin equation via standard methods of Itô calculus for multiplicative noise. From the Fokker-Planck equation we obtain an effective potential that reflects the transition from the monomodal to the bimodal distribution as a function of a control parameter. We present a variety of numerical and analytic results that illustrate the strong effects of the fluctuations. We also show that the limits N → ∞ and t → ∞ (t is the time) do not commute. In fact, the two orders of implementation lead to drastically different results.

Chimeralike States in an Ensemble of Globally Coupled Oscillators

We demonstrate the emergence of a complex state in a homogeneous ensemble of globally coupled identical oscillators, reminiscent of chimera states in nonlocally coupled oscillator lattices. In this regime some part of the ensemble forms a regularly evolving cluster, while all other units irregularly oscillate and remain asynchronous. We argue that the chimera emerges because of effective bistability, which dynamically appears in the originally monostable system due to internal delayed feedback in individual units. Additionally, we present two examples of chimeras in bistable systems with frequency-dependent phase shift in the global coupling.

Effect of spatially correlated noise on stochastic synchronization in globally coupled FitzHugh-Nagumo neuron systems

The phenomenon of stochastic synchronization in globally coupled FitzHugh-Nagumo (FHN) neuron system subjected to spatially correlated Gaussian noise is investigated based on dynamical mean-field approximation (DMA) and direct simulation (DS). Results from DMA are in good quantitative or qualitative agreement with those from DS for weak noise intensity and larger system size. Whether the consisting single FHN neuron is staying at the resting state, subthreshold oscillatory regime, or the spiking state, our investigation shows that the synchronization ratio of the globally coupled system becomes higher as the noise correlation coefficient increases, and thus we conclude that spatial correlation has an active effect on stochastic synchronization, and the neurons can achieve complete synchronization in the sense of statistics when the noise correlation coefficient tends to one. Our investigation also discloses that the noise spatial correlation plays the same beneficial role as the global coupling strength in enhancing stochastic synchronization in the ensemble. The result might be useful in understanding the information coding mechanism in neural systems.

Synchronization stability and firing transitions in two types of class I neuronal networks with short-term plasticity

This paper investigates synchronization stability and firing transition in two types of the modified canonical class I neuronal networks, where the short-term plasticity of synapse is introduced. We mainly consider both unidirectional chain and global coupling configurations. Previous studies have shown that the coupled class I neurons can spontaneously de-synchronize. Presently, the short-term plasticity of synapse is considered to check the universality of this phenomenon. Based on the theoretical analysis and numerical simulation, it is shown that unidirectionally chain coupled class I neurons can realize synchronization, whereas bidirectionally coupled chain neurons cannot synchronize, and globally coupled class I neurons de-synchronize. Furthermore, the dynamics of coupled neurons with different firing modes are also studied in numerical simulations, and interesting transitions of different firing modes can be induced by the short-term plasticity. The obtained results can be helpful to further understand important effects of the short-term synaptic plasticity on realistic neuronal systems.

Locally and globally coupled oscillators in muscle.

At an intermediate activation level, striated muscle exhibits autonomous oscillations called SPOC, in which the basic contractile units, sarcomeres, oscillate in length, and various oscillatory patterns such as traveling waves and their disrupted forms appear in a myofibril. Here we show that these patterns are reproduced by mechanically connecting in series the unit model that explains characteristics of SPOC at the single-sarcomere level. We further reduce the connected model to phase equations, revealing that the combination of local and global couplings is crucial to the emergence of these patterns.

Autonomous and forced dynamics of oscillator ensembles with global nonlinear coupling: An experimental study

We perform experiments with 72 electronic limit-cycle oscillators, globally coupled via a linear or nonlinear feedback loop. While in the linear case we observe a standard Kuramoto-like synchronization transition, in the nonlinear case, with increase of the coupling strength, we first observe a transition to full synchrony and then a desynchronization transition to a quasiperiodic state. However, in this state the ensemble remains coherent so that the amplitude of the mean field is nonzero, but the frequency of the mean field is larger than frequencies of all oscillators. Next, we analyze effects of common periodic forcing of the linearly or nonlinearly coupled ensemble and demonstrate regimes when the mean field is entrained by the force whereas the oscillators are not.

Phase chaos in the dynamics of an ensemble of oscillators with time-modulated global coupling

The object of consideration is an ensemble of globally coupled self-sustained oscillating elements with a finite-width frequency distribution. The ensemble interacts with the field of a resonator, which is a linear oscillator with a frequency doubly exceeding the mean frequency of the oscillators in the ensemble. The global coupling is switched on and off alternately, so that the ensemble alternatively passes from synchrony to asynchrony (Kuramoto transition). At each stage of activity (synchronization), the field of the resonator causes the mean field of the ensemble to oscillate so that the phase doubles compared with the previous stage of excitation. Therefore, the mean field dynamics is chaotic and, as follows from numerical simulation data, can be associated with the Smale-Williams attractor. Systems of this type can be applied in electronics, specifically, in secure communication systems, noise location, etc.

Theoretical analysis of phase locking in an array of globally coupled lasers

A model of an array of globally coupled fibre lasers, with the same fraction of the total output beam power injected into each laser, is considered. Phase self-locking of the laser array makes it possible to increase the brightness of the total output beam without any devices for controlling the phases of output beams, which significantly complicate the laser system. The spread of the laser optical lengths is several hundreds of wavelengths (or even more); within the theory of hollow cavities, this spread should lead to a fast decrease in the total power with an increase in the number of lasers. The presence of the active medium may reduce this drop to a great extent due to the self-tuning of the laser array radiation wavelength to a value providing a maximum gain for the array lasing mode. The optical length of each element is assumed to be random. The increase in the phase-locking efficiency due to the gain saturation is explained based on the probabilistic approach. An iterative procedure is developed to find the array output power in the presence of steady-state phase locking. Calculations for different values of small-signal gain and the output-power fraction spent on global coupling are performed. It is shown that, when this fraction amounts to , phase locking of up to 20 fibre lasers can be implemented with an efficiency as high as 70 %.

Swing, release, and escape mechanisms contribute to the generation of phase-locked cluster patterns in a globally coupled FitzHugh-Nagumo model

We investigate the mechanism of generation of phase-locked cluster patterns in a globally coupled FitzhHugh-Nagumo model where the fast variable (activator) receives global feedback from the slow variable (inhibitor). We identify three qualitatively different mechanisms (swing-and-release, hold-and-release, and escape-and-release) that contribute to the generation of these patterns. We describe these mechanisms and use this framework to explain under what circumstances two initially out-of-phase oscillatory clusters reach steady phase-locked and in-phase synchronized solutions, and how the phase difference between these steady state cluster patterns depends on the clusters relative size, the global coupling intensity, and other model parameters.

Persistent fluctuations in synchronization rate in globally coupled oscillators with periodic external forcing

A system of phase oscillators with repulsive global coupling and periodic external forcing undergoing asynchronous rotation is considered. The synchronization rate of the system can exhibit persistent fluctuations depending on parameters and initial phase distributions, and the amplitude of the fluctuations scales with the system size for uniformly random initial phase distributions. Using the Watanabe-Strogatz transformation that reduces the original system to low-dimensional macroscopic equations, we show that the fluctuations are collective dynamics of the system corresponding to low-dimensional trajectories of the reduced equations. It is argued that the amplitude of the fluctuations is determined by the inhomogeneity of the initial phase distribution, resulting in system-size scaling for the random case.