Coupled limit cycle oscillators with instantaneous mutual coupling offer a useful but idealized mathematical paradigm for the study of collective behavior in a wide variety of biological, physical and chemical systems. In most real-life systems however the interaction is not instantaneous but is delayed due to finite propagation times of signals, reaction times of chemicals, individual neuron firing periods in neural networks etc. We present a brief overview of the effect of time-delayed coupling on the collective dynamics of such coupled systems. Simple model equations describing two oscillators with a discrete time-delayed coupling as well as those describing linear arrays of a large number of oscillators with time-delayed global or local couplings are studied. Analytic and numerical results pertaining to time delay induced changes in the onset and stability of amplitude death and phase-locked states are discussed. A number of recent experimental and theoretical studies reveal interesting new directions of research in this field and suggest exciting future areas of exploration and applications.

This paper presents a perspective in the study of complex networks by focusing on how dynamics may affect network security under attacks. In particular, we review two related problems: attack-induced cascading breakdown and range-based attacks on links. A cascade in a network means the failure of a substantial fraction of the entire network in a cascading manner, which can be induced by the failure of or attacks on only a few nodes. These have been reported for the internet and for the power grid (e.g., the August 10, 1996 failure of the western United States power grid). We study a mechanism for cascades in complex networks by constructing a model incorporating the flows of information and physical quantities in the network. Using this model we can also show that the cascading phenomenon can be understood as a phase transition in terms of the key parameter characterizing the node capacity. For a parameter value below the phase-transition point, cascading failures can cause the network to disintegrate almost entirely. We will show how to obtain a theoretical estimate for the phase-transition point. The second problem is motivated by the fact that most existing works on the security of complex networks consider attacks on nodes rather than on links. We address attacks on links. Our investigation leads to the finding that many scale-free networks are more sensitive to attacks on short-range than on long-range links. Considering that the small-world phenomenon in complex networks has been identified as being due to the presence of long-range links, i.e., links connecting nodes that would otherwise be separated by a long node-to-node distance, our result, besides its importance concerning network efficiency and security, has the striking implication that the small-world property of scale-free networks is mainly due to short-range links.

We study intermittent lag synchronization in a system of two identical mutually coupled Duffing oscillators with parametric modulation in one of them. This phenomenon in a periodically forced system can be seen as intermittent jump from phase to lag synchronization, during which the chaotic trajectory visits a periodic orbit closely. We demonstrate different types of intermittent lag synchronizations, that occur in the vicinity of saddle-node bifurcations where the system changes its dynamical state, and characterize the simplest case of period-one intermittent lag synchronization.

We identify a novel phenomenon in distinct (namely non-identical) coupled chaotic systems, which we term dynamical hysteresis. This behavior, which appears to be universal, is defined in terms of the system dynamics (quantified for example through the Lyapunov exponents), and arises from the presence of at least two coexisting stable attractors over a finite range of coupling, with a change of stability outside this range. Further characterization via mutual synchronization indices reveals that one attractor corresponds to spatially synchronized oscillators, while the other corresponds to desynchronized oscillators. Dynamical hysteresis may thus help to understand critical aspects of the dynamical behavior of complex biological systems, e.g. seizures in the epileptic brain can be viewed as transitions between different dynamical phases caused by time dependence in the brain’s internal coupling.

Animal locomotion employs different periodic patterns known as animal gaits. In 1993, Collins and Stewart recognized that gaits possessed certain symmetries and characterized the gaits of quadrupeds and bipeds using permutation symmetry groups, which impose constraints on the locomotion center called the central pattern generator (CPG) in the animal brain. They modeled the CPG by coupling four nonlinear oscillators and found that it was possible to reproduce all symmetries of the gaits by changing the coupling strength. Here we propose to extend this idea using coupled chaotic oscillators synchronized using the Pyragas method in order to characterize the CPG symmetries. We also evaluate the time series behavior when the foot is in contact with the ground: this has potential robotic applications.

We present the results of extensive numerical studies on stochastic resonance and its characteristic features in three model systems, namely, a model for Josephson tunnel junctions, the bistable cubic map and a coupled map lattice formed by coupling the cubic maps. Some interesting features regarding the mechanism including multisignal amplification and spatial stochastic resonance are shown.

Simple models show that in Type-I intermittency a characteristic U-shaped probability distribution is obtained for the laminar phase length. The laminar phase length distribution characteristic for Type-I intermittency may be obtained in human heart rate variability data for some cases of pathology. The heart and its regulatory systems are presumed to be both noisy and non-stationary. Although the effect of additive noise on the laminar phase distribution in Type-I intermittency is well-known, the effect of neither multiplicative noise nor non-stationarity have been studied. We first discuss the properties of two classes of models of Type-I intermittency: (a) the control parameter of the logistic map is changed dichotomously from a value within the intermittency range to just below the bifurcation point and back; (b) the control parameter is changed randomly within the same parameter range as in the model class (a). We show that the properties of both models are different from those obtained for Type-I intermittency in the presence of additive noise. The two models help to explain some of the features seen in the intermittency in human heart rate variability.

Formation of feedback loops of excitation waves (reentrant circuit) around non-conducting ventricular scar tissue is a common cause of cardiac arrhythmias, such as ventricular tachycardia, often leading to death. This is typically treated by rapid stimulation from an implantable device (ICD). However, the mechanisms of reentry termination success and, more importantly, failure, are poorly understood. To study such mechanisms, we simulated pacing termination of reentry in a model of cardiac tissue having significant restitution and dispersion properties. Our results show that rapid pacing dynamically generates conduction inhomogeneities in the reentrant circuit, leading to successful pacing termination of tachycardia. The study suggests that more effective pacing algorithms can be designed by taking into account the role of such dynamical inhomogeneities.

The classical phase space density projected on to the configuration space offers a means of comparing classical and quantum evolution. In this alternate approach that we adopt here, we show that for billiards, the eigenfunctions of the coarse-grained projected classical evolution operator are identical to a first approximation to the quantum Neumann eigenfunctions. Moreover, there exists a correspondence between the respective eigenvalues although their time evolutions differ.

Quantum chaos is a subject whose major goal is to identify and to investigate different quantum signatures of classical chaos. Here we study entanglement production in coupled chaotic systems as a possible quantum indicator of classical chaos. We use coupled kicked tops as a model for our extensive numerical studies. We find that, in general, chaos in the system produces more entanglement. However, coupling strength between two subsystems is also a very important parameter for entanglement production. Here we show how chaos can lead to large entanglement which is universal and describable by random matrix theory (RMT). We also explain entanglement production in coupled strongly chaotic systems by deriving a formula based on RMT. This formula is valid for arbitrary coupling strengths, as well as for sufficiently long time. Here we investigate also the effect of chaos on the entanglement production for the mixed initial state. We find that many properties of the mixed-state entanglement production are qualitatively similar to the pure state entanglement production. We however still lack an analytical understanding of the mixed-state entanglement production in chaotic systems.

Certain intriguing consequences of the discreteness of time on the time evolution of dynamical systems are discussed. In the discrete-time classical mechanics proposed here, there is an arrow of time that follows from the fact that the replacement of the time derivative by the backward difference operator alone can preserve the non-negativity of the phase space density. It is seen that, even for free particles, all the degrees of freedom are correlated in principle. The forward evolution of functions of phase space variables by a finite number of time steps, in this discrete-time mechanics, depends on the entire continuous-time history in the interval [0, ∞]. In this sense, discrete time evolution is nonlocal in time from a continuous-time point of view. A corresponding quantum mechanical treatment is possible via the density matrix approach. The interference between nondegenerate quantum mechanical states decays exponentially. This decoherence is present, in principle, for all systems; however, it is of practical importance only in macroscopic systems, or in processes involving large energy changes.

Using classical differential geometry, we discuss the phenomenon of anholonomy that gets associated with a static and a moving curve. We obtain the expressions for the respective geometric phases in the two cases and interpret them. We show that there is a close connection between anholonomy and nonlinearity in a wide class of nonlinear systems.

The study of nonlinear dynamics has been an active area of research since 1960s, after certain path-breaking discoveries, leading to the concepts of solitons, integrability, bifurcations, chaos and spatio-temporal patterns, to name a few. Several new techniques and methods have been developed to understand nonlinear systems at different levels. Along with these, a multitude of potential applications of nonlinear dynamics have also been enunciated. In spite of these developments, several challenges, some of them fundamental and others on the efficacy of these methods in developing cutting edge technologies, remain to be tackled. In this article, a brief personal perspective of these issues is presented.