Spurious detection of phase synchronization in coupled nonlinear oscillators

Coupled nonlinear systems under certain conditions exhibit phase synchronization, which may change for different frequency bands or with presence of additive system noise. In both cases, Fourier filtering is traditionally used to preprocess data. We investigate to what extent the phase synchronization of two coupled R\"{o}ssler oscillators depends on (1) the broadness of their power spectrum, (2) the width of the band-pass filter, and (3) the level of added noise. We find that for identical coupling strengths, oscillators with broader power spectra exhibit weaker synchronization. Further, we find that within a broad band width range, band-pass filtering reduces the effect of noise but can lead to a spurious increase in the degree of synchronization with narrowing band width, even when the coupling between the two oscillators remains the same.Comment: 4 pages,6 figure

Control energy of complex networks towards distinct mixture states

Controlling complex networked systems is a real-world puzzle that remains largely unsolved. Despite recent progress in understanding the structural characteristics of network control energy, target state and system dynamics have not been explored. We examine how varying the final state mixture affects the control energy of canonical and conformity-incorporated dynamical systems. We find that the control energy required to drive a network to an identical final state is lower than that required to arrive a non-identical final state. We also demonstrate that it is easier to achieve full control in a conformity-based dynamical network. Finally we determine the optimal control strategy in terms of the network hierarchical structure. Our work offers a realistic understanding of the control energy within the final state mixture and sheds light on controlling complex systems.This work was funded by The National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61763013, 61703159, 61403421), The Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province (No. 20171BAB212017), The Measurement and Control of Aircraft at Sea Laboratory (No. FOM2016OF010), and China Scholarship Council (201708360048). The Boston University Center for Polymer Studies is supported by NSF Grants PHY-1505000, CMMI-1125290, and CHE-1213217, and by DTRA Grant HDTRA1-14-1-0017. (61763013 - National Natural Science Foundation of China; 61703159 - National Natural Science Foundation of China; 61403421 - National Natural Science Foundation of China; 20171BAB212017 - Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province; FOM2016OF010 - Measurement and Control of Aircraft at Sea Laboratory; 201708360048 - China Scholarship Council; PHY-1505000 - NSF; CMMI-1125290 - NSF; CHE-1213217 - NSF; HDTRA1-14-1-0017 - DTRA)Published versio

Optimization of crystal nucleation close to a metastable fluid-fluid phase transition

The presence of a metastable fluid-fluid critical point is thought to dramatically influence the crystallization pathway, increasing the nucleation rate by many orders of magnitude over the predictions of classical nucleation theory. We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the kinetics of crystallization in the vicinity of this metastable critical point and throughout the metastable fluid-fluid phase diagram. To quantitatively understand how the fluid-fluid phase separation affects the crystal nucleation, we evaluate accurately the kinetics and reconstruct the thermodynamic free-energy landscape of crystal formation. Contrary to expectations, we find no special advantage of the proximity of the metastable critical point on the crystallization rates. However, we find that the ultrafast formation of a dense liquid phase causes the crystallization to accelerate both near the metastable critical point and almost everywhere below the fluid-fluid spinodal line. These results unveil three different scenarios for crystallization that could guide the optimization of the process in experimentsThis work has been supported by the MINECO of the Spanish government through Grants No. FIS2012-31025 and FIS2011-22603. LX thanks the financial support from MOST 973 of China (Grants No. 2015CB856800 and 2012CB921404) and National Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 11174006 and 11290162). HES thanks the NSF Chemistry Division for support (grants CHE 0911389, CHE 0908218, and CHE 1213217). SVB thanks the Office of the Academic Affairs of Yeshiva University for funding the Yeshiva University high-performance computer cluster and acknowledges the partial support of this research through Dr. Bernard W. Gamson computational Science Center at Yeshiva College. (FIS2012-31025 - MINECO of the Spanish government; FIS2011-22603 - MINECO of the Spanish government; 2015CB856800 - MOST 973 of China; 2012CB921404 - MOST 973 of China; 11174006 - National Science Foundation of China; 11290162 - National Science Foundation of China; CHE 0911389 - NSF Chemistry Division; CHE 0908218 - NSF Chemistry Division; CHE 1213217 - NSF Chemistry Division; Office of the Academic Affairs of Yeshiva University; Dr. Bernard W. Gamson computational Science Center at Yeshiva College)Published versio