Synchronization in cilia carpets and the Kuramoto model with local coupling: breakup of global synchronization in the presence of noise

TL;DR

This paper models cilia carpets as noisy, hydrodynamically coupled oscillators, revealing how increasing noise causes a sudden loss of global synchronization, linking biological cilia behavior to the Kuramoto model.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-scale model of cilia carpets incorporating realistic hydrodynamics and noise, connecting biological oscillators to the Kuramoto model with asymmetric coupling.

Findings

Global synchronization breaks down at a critical noise level.

Stochastic phase slips occur during transitions between synchronized and disordered states.

The model links biological cilia dynamics to the Kuramoto oscillator framework.

Abstract

Carpets of beating cilia represent a paradigmatic example of self-organized synchronization of noisy biological oscillators, characterized by traveling waves of cilia phase. We present a multi-scale model of a cilia carpet, which comprises realistic hydrodynamic interactions between cilia computed for a chiral cilia beat pattern from unicellular Paramecium and active noise of the cilia beat. We demonstrate an abrupt loss of global synchronization beyond a characteristic noise strength. We characterize stochastic transitions between synchronized and disordered dynamics, which generalizes the notion of phase slips in pairs of coupled noisy phase oscillators. Our theoretical work establishes a link between the two-dimensional Kuramoto model of phase oscillators with mirror-symmetric oscillator coupling and detailed models of biological oscillators with asymmetric, chiral interactions.