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Science 31 May 2002:
Vol. 296. no. 5573, pp. 1676 - 1678
DOI: 10.1126/science.1070757
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Reports

Emerging Coherence in a Population of Chemical Oscillators

István Z. Kiss, Yumei Zhai, John L. Hudson*

Coherence of interacting oscillating entities has importance in biological, chemical, and physical systems. We report experiments on populations of chemical oscillators and verify a 25-year-old theory of Kuramoto that predicts that global coupling in a set of smooth limit-cycle oscillators with different frequencies produces a phase transition in which some of the elements synchronize. Both the critical point and the predicted dependence of order on coupling are seen in the experiments. We extend the studies both to relaxation and to chaotic oscillators and characterize the quantitative similarities and differences among the types of systems.

Department of Chemical Engineering, 102 Engineers' Way, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4741, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: hudson{at}virginia.edu

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