Chimera-like states generated by large perturbation of synchronous state of coupled metronomes

Abstract

Chimera states in systems of coupled identical oscillators are spatiotemporal patterns in which different groups of oscillators can exhibit coexisting synchronous and incoherent behaviors despite homogeneous coupling. Here, considering the network of coupled pendula, we find that the patterns of chimera-like states can be generated after the large perturbation (in which one or a few oscillators have been stopped for the moment) of the synchronous state of the whole network. We show that these chimera-like states can be observed in simple experiments with mechanical oscillators, which are controlled by elementary dynamical equations given by classical mechanics.