Discontinuous coupling and transition from synchronization to an intermittent transient chimera state

Abstract

Coexistence of coherent and incoherent clusters, called chimera state, has been observed in different coupling configurations. A majority of studies have considered a static scheme for the network. In this paper, synchronization patterns of a time-varying network with discontinuous coupling (on/off links) were studied. At first, the prerequisites for synchronization of continuous and discontinuous coupling were found using the master stability function method. It was observed that when the network with continuous coupling was set in the synchronous region, changing the coupling to a discontinuous one would lead to the emergence of a pattern consisting of alternating synchronization, asynchronization, and chimera state. This pattern is called intermittent transient chimera here. This study is completed by investigating the effect of the rate of discontinuity on the network behavior.