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Updated: Feb 6, 2026

Basic Caenorhabditis elegans Methods: Synchronization and Observation
Published on: June 10, 2012
Synchronizing the Smallest Possible System
Alexandre Roulet1, Christoph Bruder1
1Department of Physics, University of Basel, Klingelbergstrasse 82, CH-4056 Basel, Switzerland.
Abstract:
We investigate the minimal Hilbert-space dimension for a system to be synchronized. We first show that qubits cannot be synchronized due to the lack of a limit cycle. Moving to larger spin values, we demonstrate that a single spin 1 can be phase locked to a weak external signal of similar frequency and exhibits all the standard features of the theory of synchronization. Our findings rely on the Husimi Q representation based on spin coherent states which we propose as a tool to obtain a phase portrait.
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