Real-world systems in epidemiology, social sciences, power transportation, economics and engineering are often described as multilayer networks. Here we first define and compute the symmetries of multilayer networks, and then study the emergence of cluster synchronization in these networks. We distinguish between independent layer symmetries, which occur in one layer and are independent of the other layers, and dependent layer symmetries, which involve nodes in different layers. We study stability of the cluster synchronous solution by decoupling the problem into a number of independent blocks and assessing stability of each block through a Master Stability Function. We see that blocks associated with dependent layer symmetries have a different structure to the other blocks, which affects the stability of clusters associated with these symmetries. Finally, we validate the theory in a fully analog experiment in which seven electronic oscillators of three kinds are connected with two kinds of coupling.

We investigate cluster synchronization in networks of nonlinear systems with time-delayed coupling. Using a generic model for a system close to the Hopf bifurcation, we predict the order of appearance of different cluster states and their corresponding common frequencies depending upon coupling delay. We may tune the delay time in order to ensure the existence and stability of a specific cluster state. We qualitatively and quantitatively confirm these results in experiments with chemical oscillators. The experiments also exhibit strongly nonlinear relaxation oscillations as we increase the voltage, i.e., go further away from the Hopf bifurcation. In this regime, we find secondary cluster states with delay-dependent phase lags. These cluster states appear in addition to primary states with delay-independent phase lags observed near the Hopf bifurcation. Extending the theory on Hopf normal-form oscillators, we are able to account for realistic interaction functions, yielding good agreement with experimental findings.

Phase models are a powerful method to quantify the coupled dynamics of nonlinear oscillators from measured data. We use two phase modeling methods to quantify the dynamics of pairs of coupled electrochemical oscillators, based on the phases of the two oscillators independently and the phase difference, respectively. We discuss the benefits of the two-dimensional approach relative to the one-dimensional approach using phase difference. We quantify the dependence of the coupling functions on the coupling magnitude and coupling time delay. We show differences in synchronization predictions of the two models using a toy model. We show that the two-dimensional approach reveals behavior not detected by the one-dimensional model in a driven experimental oscillator. This approach is broadly applicable to quantify interactions between nonlinear oscillators, especially where intrinsic oscillator sensitivity and coupling evolve with time.

We investigate cluster synchronization in experiments with a multilayer network of electronic Colpitts oscillators, specifically a network with two interaction layers. We observe and analytically characterize the appearance of several cluster states as we change coupling in the layers. In this study, we innovatively combine bifurcation analysis and the computation of transverse Lyapunov exponents. We observe four kinds of synchronized states, from fully synchronous to a clustered quasiperiodic state-the first experimental observation of the latter state. Our work is the first to study fundamentally dissimilar kinds of coupling within an experimental multilayer network.

Coupled oscillators were believed to exclusively exist in a state of synchrony or disorder until Kuramoto theoretically proved that the two states could coexist, called a chimera state, when portions of the population had a spatial dependent coupling. Recent work has demonstrated the spontaneous emergence of chimera states in an experiment involving mechanical oscillators coupled through a two platform swing. We constructed an experimental apparatus with three platforms that each contains a population of mechanical oscillators in order investigate the effects of a network symmetry on naturally arising chimera states. We considered in more detail the case of 15 metronomes per platform and observed that chimera states emerged as a broad range of parameters, namely, the metronomes' nominal frequency and the coupling strength between the platforms. A scalability study shows that chimera states no longer arise when the population size is reduced to three metronomes per platform. Furthermore, many chimera states are seen in the system when the coupling between platforms is asymmetric.