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Chimera states are fragile under random links (Vol. 51, No. 2)

Example of a chimera state in a ring of coupled oscillators (left) destroyed by the presence of a single random link (right).

In a chimera state of large interactive systems the underlying symmetry of the dynamical system is spontaneously broken and the spatial profile splits into synchronised and desynchronised groups.

In this work the surprising fragility of chimeras in the presence of very few time-varying random links is demonstrated in wide-ranging examples. Spatial randomness restores the symmetry of the emergent spatial patterns, with chimeras giving way to uniform steady states or spatiotemporal chaos. The size of the basin of attraction of chimeras rapidly shrinks under increasing randomness, indicating its strong impact on the global stability of chimeras. These results impact the search for chimeras in real-world systems.

Sudeshna Sinha, Chimera states are fragile under random links, EPL 128, 40004 (2019)
[Abstract]