Phase synchronization in bidirectionally coupled optothermal devices

Universal occurrence of the phase-flip bifurcation in time-delay coupled systems

Recently, the phase-flip bifurcation has been described as a fundamental transition in time-delay coupled, phase-synchronized nonlinear dynamical systems. The bifurcation is characterized by a change of the synchronized dynamics from being in-phase to antiphase, or vice versa; the phase-difference between the oscillators undergoes a jump of pi as a function of the coupling strength or the time delay. This phase-flip is accompanied by discontinuous changes in the frequency of the synchronized oscillators, and in the largest negative Lyapunov exponent or its derivative. Here we illustrate the phenomenology of the bifurcation for several classes of nonlinear oscillators, in the regimes of both periodic and chaotic dynamics. We present extensive numerical simulations and compute the oscillation frequencies and the Lyapunov spectra as a function of the coupling strength. In particular, our simulations provide clear evidence of the phase-flip bifurcation in excitable laser and Fitzhugh-Nagumo neuronal models, and in diffusively coupled predator-prey models with either limit cycle or chaotic dynamics. Our analysis demonstrates marked jumps of the time-delayed and instantaneous fluxes between the two interacting oscillators across the bifurcation; this has strong implications for the performance of the system as well as for practical applications. We further construct an electronic circuit consisting of two coupled Chua oscillators and provide the first formal experimental demonstration of the bifurcation. In totality, our study demonstrates that the phase-flip phenomenon is of broad relevance and importance for a wide range of physical and natural systems.

Experimental observation of synchronous competition in the Chua system

We present experimental results for two different sinusoidal functions competing to phase synchronize a Chua oscillator. Our approach involves real-time observation of the synchronization process. It shows that depending on the amplitude and frequency values of the two sinusoidal functions, the Chua oscillator can stay phase synchronized to one or the other of the inputs all the time or can alternate synchronous states between them. Numerical simulations show good agreement with the experimental observations.

Synchronization in systems with multiple time delays

We report on chaos synchronization between two unidirectionally coupled chaotic systems with multiple time delays and find both the existence and stability conditions for anticipating, lag, inverse and complete synchronizations. The method is tested on the famous Ikeda model. Numerical simulations fully support the analytical approach.