Collective Dynamics of coupled Lorenz oscillators near the Hopf Boundary: Intermittency and Chimera states

TL;DR

This paper investigates the complex spatio-temporal behaviors, including intermittency and chimera states, in networks of coupled Lorenz oscillators near a Hopf bifurcation, revealing multistability and power-law distributed laminar phases.

Contribution

It demonstrates the emergence of intermittent chimera states and multistability in coupled Lorenz oscillators near the Hopf boundary, extending understanding of complex oscillator dynamics.

Findings

Identification of intermittent chimera states.

Power-law distribution of laminar phase durations.

Multistability near the Hopf bifurcation.

Abstract

We study collective dynamics of networks of mutually coupled identical Lorenz oscillators near subcritical Hopf bifurcation. This system shows induced multistable behavior with interesting spatio-temporal dynamics including synchronization, desynchronization and chimera states. We find this network may exhibit intermittent behavior due to the complex basin structures, where, temporal dynamics of the oscillators in the ensemble switches between different attractors. Consequently, different oscillators may show dynamics that is intermittently synchronized (or desynchronized), giving rise to {\it intermittent chimera states}. The behaviour of the intermittent laminar phases is characterized by the characteristic time spend in the synchronization manifold, which decays as power law. This intermittent dynamics is quite general and can be extended for large number of oscillators interacting with nonlocal, global and local coupling schemes.