The phenomenon of chimera states in the systems of coupled, identical oscillators has attracted a great deal of recent theoretical and experimental interest. In such a state, different groups of oscillators can exhibit coexisting synchronous and incoherent behaviors despite homogeneous coupling. Here, considering the coupled pendula, we find another pattern, the so-called imperfect chimera state, which is characterized by a certain number of oscillators which escape from the synchronized chimera's cluster or behave differently than most of uncorrelated pendula. The escaped elements oscillate with different average frequencies (Poincare rotation number). We show that imperfect chimera can be realized in simple experiments with mechanical oscillators, namely Huygens clock. The mathematical model of our experiment shows that the observed chimera states are controlled by elementary dynamical equations derived from Newton's laws that are ubiquitous in many physical and engineering systems.

Abstract:In this report we recall the famous Huygens' experiment which gave the first evidence of the synchronization phenomenon. We consider the synchronization of two clocks which are accurate (show the same time) but have pendulawith different masses. It has been shown that such clocks hanging on the same beam can show the almost complete (in-phase) and almost antiphase synchronizations. By almost complete and almost antiphase synchronization we defined the periodic motion of the pendula in which the phase shift between the displacements of the pendula is respectively close (but not equal) to 0 or π.We give evidence that almost antiphase synchronization was the phenomenon observed by Huygens in XVII century. We support our numerical studies by considering the energy balance in the system and showing how the energy is transferred between the pendula via oscillating beam allowing the pendula's synchronization. Additionally we discuss the synchronization of a number of different pendulum clocks hanging from a horizontal beam which can roll on the parallel surface. It has been shown that after a transient, different types of synchronization between pendula can be observed;(i) the complete synchronization in which all pendula behave identically, (ii) pendula create three or five clusters of synchronized pendula. We derive the equations for the estimation of the phase differences between phase synchronized clusters. The evidence, why other configurations with a different number of clusters are not observed, is given.

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