Laser chimeras as a paradigm for multistable patterns in complex systems

• Published in: Nature communications 2015-07, Vol.6 (1), p.7752-7752, Article 7752
• Main Authors: Larger, Laurent, Penkovsky, Bogdan, Maistrenko, Yuri
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 639/624/1020/1093; 639/766/25; 639/766/483/640; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Optics; Physics; Science; Science (multidisciplinary)
• ISSN: 2041-1723; 2041-1723
• DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8752

A chimera state is a rich and fascinating class of self-organized solutions developed in high-dimensional networks. Necessary features of the network for the emergence of such complex but structured motions are non-local and symmetry breaking coupling. An accurate understanding of chimera states is expected to bring important insights on deterministic mechanism occurring in many structurally similar high-dimensional dynamics such as living systems, brain operation principles and even turbulence in hydrodynamics. Here we report on a powerful and highly controllable experiment based on an optoelectronic delayed feedback applied to a wavelength tuneable semiconductor laser, with which a wide variety of chimera patterns can be accurately investigated and interpreted. We uncover a cascade of higher-order chimeras as a pattern transition from N to N +1 clusters of chaoticity. Finally, we follow visually, as the gain increases, how chimera state is gradually destroyed on the way to apparent turbulence-like system behaviour. Chimera states are a class of self-organized solutions of high-dimensional networks with non-local and symmetry breaking coupling. Here the authors study the chimera patterns generated in a non-linear optical setup and uncover the transition between chimera orders as a pattern across clusters of chaoticity.