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Updated: Aug 4, 2026

Quantum State Engineering of Light with Continuous-wave Optical Parametric Oscillators
Published on: May 30, 2014
Chimera states for coupled oscillators
Daniel M Abrams1, Steven H Strogatz
1Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics, Cornell University, 212 Kimball Hall, Ithaca, New York 14853-1503, USA. dma32@cornell.edu
Abstract:
Arrays of identical oscillators can display a remarkable spatiotemporal pattern in which phase-locked oscillators coexist with drifting ones. Discovered two years ago, such "chimera states" are believed to be impossible for locally or globally coupled systems; they are peculiar to the intermediate case of nonlocal coupling. Here we present an exact solution for this state, for a ring of phase oscillators coupled by a cosine kernel. We show that the stable chimera state bifurcates from a spatially modulated drift state, and dies in a saddle-node bifurcation with an unstable chimera state.
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