Synchronization structures in the chain of rotating pendulums

TL;DR

This paper investigates the complex synchronization behaviors in chains of coupled pendulums, revealing various stable modes, bifurcations, and coexistence phenomena through theoretical analysis and numerical simulations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of rotational synchronization modes in coupled pendulum chains, including stability boundaries and mode transitions, for arbitrary chain lengths.

Findings

Existence of multiple out-of-phase synchronous modes.

Bifurcation points leading to loss of in-phase stability.

Coexistence of stable in-phase and out-of-phase modes.

Abstract

The collective behavior of the ensembles of coupled nonlinear oscillator is one of the most interesting and important problems in modern nonlinear dynamics. In this paper, we study rotational dynamics, in particular space-time structures, in locally coupled identical pendulum-type elements chains that describe the behavior of phase-locked-loop systems, distributed Josephson junctions, coupled electrical machines, etc. The control parameters in the considered chains are: dissipation, coupling strength, and number of elements. In the system under consideration, the realized modes are synchronous in frequency and synchronous (in-phase) or asynchronous (out-of-phase) in phase. In the low dissipation case, the in-phase synchronous rotational regime instability region boundaries are theoretically found and the bifurcations leading to the loss of its stability are determined. The analysis was carried out for chains of arbitrary length. The existence of various out-of-phase synchronous rotational modes types is revealed: completely asynchronous in phases and the cluster in-phase synchronization regime. Regularities of transitions from one type of out-of-phase synchronous mode to another are established. It was found that at certain coupling parameter values, the coexistence of stable in-phase and out-of-phase synchronous modes is possible. It was found that for arbitrary chain length, the number of possible stable out-of-phase modes is always one less than the chain elements number. Analytical results are confirmed by numerical simulations.