Erik Andreas Martens, Shashi Thutupalli, Antoine Fourrière, and Oskar Hallatscheka. Chimera states in mechanical oscillator networks.
The synchronization of oscillating units is a fascinating manifestation of self-organization that nature uses to orchestrate essential processes of life, such as the beating of the heart, or in population dynamics. In ecology, planktonic populations can synchronize their cycles, just like the cycles of entire populations that persist in time and are synchronized over space. Theoretical studies have shown that oscillators can also exhibit so-called chimera states, where one half of the population synchronizes, but the other half is asynchronous, even though the oscillators are identical. Such states have formerly only been hypothesized in abstract mathematical models; by using metronomes as oscillators and in a purely mechanical setup the authors demonstrate for the first time that such states indeed can arise in physical systems.
A Danish article about the research can be found at videnskab.dk
The original article can be found at PNAS