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Active Marangoni surfers can be captured in the local region of the incidence of an air-draft from a micro air pump. The phenomena is observed across population size and two types of surfactant used as fuel.

We report various modes of synchrony observed for a population of two, three and four pentanol drops in a rectangular channel at the air-water interface. Initially, the autonomous oscillations of a single 1-pentanol drop were studied in a ferroin DI water solution pre-mixed with some volume of pentanol. A pentanol drop performs continuous motion on the air-water interface due to Marangoni forces. A linear channel was prepared to study the uniaxial movement of the drop(s). Thereafter, a systematic study of the self-propelled motion of a 1-pentanol drop was reported as a function of the drop volume. Subsequently, the coupled dynamics were studied for two, three and four drops, respectively. We observed anti-phase oscillations in a pair of pentanol drops. In the case of three drops, relay synchronization was observed, wherein consecutive pairs of drops were exhibiting out-of-phase oscillations and alternate drops were performing in-phase oscillations. Four pentanol drops showed two different modes of synchrony: one was relay synchrony and the other was out-of-phase oscillations between two pairs of drops (within a pair, the drops exhibit in-phase oscillations).

We have explored a variety of synchronization domains and observed phase-flip transition in a pair of coupled 1-pentanol drops as a function of the volume mismatch. Both experimental observations and numerical studies are presented. The experiments were carried out in a rectangular channel in a ferroin deionized water solution premixed with some volume of pentanol. A single pentanol drop (≥ 3μL) performs back and forth oscillations along the length of the channel due to the well-known Marangoni forces. In the present work, for a pair of drops, the drop 1 volume was changed from 3 to 5 μL in steps of 1μL, whereas the drop 2 volume was varied from 1 to 3 μL in steps of 0.5μL. A systematic investigation of all the possible combinations of the drop volumes showed the presence of three different types of synchrony-in-phase, antiphase, and phase-switched. In-phase synchronization was robust for a volume mismatch of3.0μL between the two drops. On the other hand, antiphase synchronization was robust when the volume mismatch was2.0μL. The phase-switched state is a synchronized state involving a phase-flip transition in the time domain. This state was observed for the intermediate range of volume mismatch. Numerically, the system has been investigated using two Stuart-Landau oscillators interacting via a coupling function in the form of Lennard-Jones potential. The numerical results suitably capture both in-phase and antiphase oscillations for a pair of volume-mismatched pentanol drops.

We report experimental and numerical evidence of synchronized spiking phenomena provoked by the interaction of two bidirectionally coupled electrochemical systems subjected to independent stochastic input signals. To this end, the anodic potentials of two such systems were diffusively coupled. The corresponding anodic currents of these systems exhibited excitable fixed point behavior in the vicinity of a homoclinic bifurcation. Following this, the anodic potentials were perturbed by independent noise signals. The invoked oscillatory dynamics are analyzed using normalized variance and cross-correlation coefficient. By systematically varying the coupling strength between the systems and the level of external noise, regions exhibiting synchronized spiking behavior were identified.

In this letter, we experimentally demonstrate an efficient scheme to regulate the behaviour of coupled nonlinear oscillators through dynamic control of their interaction. It is observed that introducing intermittency in the interaction term as a function of time or the system state, predictably alters the dynamics of the constituent oscillators. Choosing the nature of the interaction - attractive or repulsive, allows for either suppression of oscillations or stimulation of activity. Two parameters $\Delta$ and $\tau$, that reign the extent of interaction among subsystems are introduced. They serve as a harness to access the entire range of possible behaviours from fixed points to chaos. For fixed values of system parameters and coupling strength, changing $\Delta$ and $\tau$ offers fine control over the dynamics of coupled subsystems. We show this experimentally using coupled Chua's circuits and elucidate their behaviour for a range of coupling parameters through detailed numerical simulations., Comment: To be published in Physical Review E

We present numerical and experimental results for the generation of aperiodic motion in coupled active rotators. The numerical analysis is presented for two point particles constrained to move on a unit circle under the Yukawa-like interaction. Simulations exhibit that the collision among the rotors results in chaotic motion of the rotating point particles. Furthermore, the numerical model predicts a route to chaotic motion. Subsequently, we explore the effect of separation between the rotors on their chaotic dynamics. The numerically calculated fraction of initial conditions which led to chaotic motion shed light on the observed effects. We reproduce a subset of the numerical observations with two self-propelled ribbons rotating at the air-water interface. A pinned camphor rotor moves at the interface due to the Marangoni forces generated by surface tension imbalance around it. The camphor layer present at the common water surface acts as chemical coupling between two ribbons. The separation distance of ribbons (L) determines the nature of coupled dynamics. Below a critical distance (L_{T}), rotors can potentially, by virtue of collisions, exhibit aperiodic oscillations characterized via a mixture of co- and counterrotating oscillations. These aperiodic dynamics qualitatively matched the chaotic motion observed in the numerical model.

In this work, we report a quenching of oscillations observed upon coupling two chemomechanical oscillators. Each one of these oscillators consists of a drop of liquid metal submerged in an oxidizing solution. These pseudoidentical oscillators have been shown to exhibit both periodic and aperiodic oscillatory behavior. In the experiments performed on these oscillators, we find that coupling two such oscillators via an attenuated resistive coupling leads the coupled system towards an oscillation quenched state. To further comprehend these experimental observations, we numerically explore and verify the presence of similar oscillation quenching in a model of coupled Hindmarsh-Rose (HR) systems. A linear stability analysis of this HR system reveals that attenuated coupling induces a change in eigenvalues of the relevant Jacobian, leading to stable quenched oscillation states. Additionally, the analysis yields a threshold of attenuation for oscillation quenching that is consistent with the value observed in numerics. So this phenomenon, demonstrated through experiments, as well as simulations and analysis of a model system, suggests a powerful natural mechanism that can potentially suppress periodic and aperiodic oscillations in coupled nonlinear systems.

The catalytic electro-oxidation of some small organic molecules is known to display kinetic instabilities, which reflect on potential and/or current oscillations. Under oscillatory conditions, those systems can be considered electrocatalytic oscillators and, therefore, can be described by their amplitude, frequency, and waveform. Just like mechanical oscillators, the electrocatalytic ones can be coupled and their dynamics can be changed by setting different coupling parameters. In the present work, we study the unidirectional coupling of electrocatalytic oscillators, namely, those comprehending the catalytic electro-oxidation of methanol and formic acid on polycrystalline platinum in acidic media under potentiostatic control. Herein, we explore two different scenarios (the coupling of compositionally identical and non-identical oscillators) and investigate the effects of the master's identity and of the coupling constant on the slave's dynamics. For the master (methanol)–slave (methanol) coupling, the oscillators exhibited phase lag synchronization and complete phase synchronization. On the other hand, for the master (formic acid)–slave (methanol) coupling, the oscillators exhibited complete phase synchronization with phase-locking with a 2:3 ratio, complete phase synchronization with phase-locking with a 1:2 ratio, phase lag synchronization, and complete phase synchronization. The obtained results suggest that both the master's identity and the coupling constant (sign and magnitude) are parameters that play an important role on the coupled systems, in such a way that even for completely different systems, synchronization could emerge by setting a suitable coupling constant. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report concerning the electrical coupling of hidden N-shaped-negative differential resistance type systems.

In this article, we present a dynamical scheme to obtain a reconfigurable noise-aided logic gate, that yields all six fundamental 2-input logic operations, including the XOR operation. The setup consists of two coupled bistable subsystems that are each driven by one subthreshold logic input signal, in the presence of a noise floor. The synchronization state of their outputs, robustly maps to 2-input logic operations of the driving signals, in an optimal window of noise and coupling strengths. Thus the interplay of noise, nonlinearity and coupling, leads to the emergence of logic operations embedded within the collective state of the coupled system. This idea is manifested using both numerical simulations and proof-of-principle circuit experiments. The regions in parameter space that yield reliable logic operations were characterized through a stringent measure of reliability, using both numerical and experimental data., Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures

We report experiments on an active camphor rotor. A camphor rotor is prepared by infusing camphor on a regular rectangular paper strip. It performs self-propelled motion at the air-water interface due to Marangoni driven forces. After some transient (periodic) dynamics, the rotor enters into the aperiodic bursting regime, which is characterized as an irregularly repeated rest (halt) and run (motion) of the rotor. Subsequently, this aperiodic (irregular) rotor is entrained to a periodic (regular) regime with the help of a suitable external periodic forcing. Furthermore, we conducted experiments on two such coupled aperiodic camphor rotors. In this set of experiments, synchronized bursting was observed. During this bursting motion, one rotor follows the movement of the other rotor. A numerical point particle model, incorporating excitable underlying equations, successfully replicated experimentally observed aperiodic bursting.

Objective. Periodic photic stimulation of human volunteers at 10 Hz is known to entrain their electroencephalography (EEG) signals. This entrainment manifests as an increment in power at 10, 20, 30 Hz. We observed that this entrainment is accompanied by the emergence of sub-harmonics, but only at specific frequencies and higher intensities of the stimulating signal. Thereafter, we describe our results and explain them using the physiologically inspired Jansen and Rit neural mass model (NMM). Approach. Four human volunteers were separately exposed to both high and low intensity 10 Hz and 6 Hz stimulation. A total of four experiments per subject were therefore performed. Simulations and bifurcation analysis of the NMM were carried out and compared with the experimental findings. Main results. High intensity 10 Hz stimulation led to an increment in power at 5 Hz across all the four subjects. No increment of power was observed with low intensity stimulation. However, when the same protocol was repeated with a 6 Hz photic stimulation, neither high nor low intensity stimulation were found to cause a discernible change in power at 3 Hz. We found that the NMM was able to recapitulate these results. A further numerical analysis indicated that this arises from the underlying bifurcation structure of the NMM. Significance. The excellent match between theory and experiment suggest that the bifurcation properties of the NMM are mirroring similar features possessed by the actual neural masses producing the EEG dynamics. NMMs could thus be valuable for understanding properties and pathologies of EEG dynamics, and may contribute to the engineering of brain–computer interface technologies.

Liquid drops when subjected to external periodic perturbations can execute polygonal oscillations. In this work, a simple model is presented that demonstrates these oscillations and their characteristic properties. The model consists of a spring-mass network such that masses are analogous to liquid molecules and the springs correspond to intermolecular links. Neo-Hookean springs are considered to represent these intermolecular links. The restoring force of a neo-Hookean spring depends nonlinearly on its length such that the force of a compressed spring is much higher than the force of the spring elongated by the same amount. This is analogous to the incompressibility of liquids, making these springs suitable to simulate the polygonal oscillations. It is shown that this spring-mass network can imitate most of the characteristic features of experimentally reported polygonal oscillations. Additionally, it is shown that the network can execute certain dynamics, which so far have not been observed in a perturbed liquid drop. The characteristics of dynamics that are observed in the perturbed network are polygonal oscillations, rotation of network, numerical relations (rational and irrational) between the frequencies of polygonal oscillations and the forcing signal, and that the shape of the polygons depends on the parameters of perturbation.

The effect of interventions on the progression of an epidemic is studied by numerically modeling attributes, such as lockdowns and vaccinations within a stochastic, highly connected, mobile community using an agent-based model. Based on real life assumptions, we are able to gauge the effectiveness of various strategies to contain the spread of a disease through a population. The fine-tuning of control parameters makes the model coherent with real life scenarios and robust from a policy-maker’s perspective.

Noise added to a chirally autocatalytic model system is usually known to cause mirror-symmetry breaking with statistically equal distributions for the two product enantiomers. We show that if such a system is asymmetrically perturbed by means of a very small undetectable bias in the racemization equilibrium between the two enantiomers, adding Gaussian white noise can lead to an efficient enantioselection. Consequently, within a certain range of the noise amplitude, symmetry breaking gives rise to an entirely biased statistical distribution in favor of one of the enantiomers. In contrast, racemic results will be obtained for the corresponding deterministic case (in the absence of noise). Thus, added noise plays a constructive role by directing the chiral system into a specific enantiomeric direction while being influenced only by a subthreshold asymmetric input. This effect could be of conceptual interest for the impact of weak asymmetric fields on nonlinear chemical reactions.

We report the observation of strange nonchaotic attractors in an electrochemical cell. The system parameters were chosen such that the system observable (anodic current) exhibits fixed point behavior or period one oscillations. These autonomous dynamics were thereafter subjected to external quasiperiodic forcing. Systematically varying the characteristics (frequency and amplitude) of the superimposed external signal; quasiperiodic, chaotic and strange nonchaotic behaviors in the anodic current were generated. The inception of strange nonchaotic attractors was verified using standard diagnostic techniques.

The responses of an excitable system to external periodic perturbations are studied by using the photosensitive Oregonator that is a three variable model of the photosensitive Belousov–Zhabotinsky reaction. The system is set at the vicinity of the subcritical Hopf bifurcation point, and sinusoidal perturbation is given by light: ϕ ( α , ν ) = ϕ 0 − α A 0 sin ⁡ ( 2 π ν τ ) . The dynamic threshold for firing appears as a U-shaped line in ν – α plane. Under high-frequency perturbations, the system shows a subthreshold period-doubling cascade, subthreshold chaotic responses (excitable chaos) and reaches firing chaos as a result of expansion of orbits around the fixed point.

Chemical bath deposition is a thin film technique in which compound semiconductor thin films of typically 0.02–1 μm thickness are deposited on the substrates immersed in dilute baths containing metal ions and a source of sulfide or selenide ions. Many I–VI, II–VI, IV–VI, and V–VI semiconductors are included in the list of materials deposited by this technique. However, a mathematical model describing the growth mechanism of these films in the context of batch production of large area thin films still remains to be established. The deposition process consists of a nucleation phase, growth phase, and a terminal phase, each of which depends on the concentration of the ions in the deposition bath, the temperature of the deposition, dissociation constants of the metal complex ions, etc. In this paper we propose a mathematical model which can qualitatively account for most of the features of the experimental growth curves of the chemically deposited semiconductor thin films.