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1. Achieving designed texture and flows in bulk active nematics using optimal control theory

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0244046  

   Ghosh, Saptorshi; Baskaran, Aparna; Hagan, Michael F (April 2025, The Journal of Chemical Physics)

   Being intrinsically nonequilibrium, active materials can potentially perform functions that would be thermodynamically forbidden in passive materials. However, active systems have diverse local attractors that correspond to distinct dynamical states, many of which exhibit chaotic turbulent-like dynamics and thus cannot perform work or useful functions. Designing such a system to choose a specific dynamical state is a formidable challenge. Motivated by recent advances enabling optogenetic control of experimental active materials, we describe an optimal control theory framework that identifies a spatiotemporal sequence of light-generated activity that drives an active nematic system toward a prescribed dynamical steady state. Active nematics are unstable to spontaneous defect proliferation and chaotic streaming dynamics in the absence of control. We demonstrate that optimal control theory can compute activity fields that redirect the dynamics into a variety of alternative dynamical programs and functions. This includes dynamically reconfiguring between states, selecting and stabilizing emergent behaviors that do not correspond to attractors, and are hence unstable in the uncontrolled system. Our results provide a roadmap to leverage optical control methods to rationally design structure, dynamics, and function in a wide variety of active materials. 

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2. Topological synchronization of chaotic systems

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-06262-z  

   Lahav, Nir; Sendiña-Nadal, Irene; Hens, Chittaranjan; Ksherim, Baruch; Barzel, Baruch; Cohen, Reuven; Boccaletti, Stefano (December 2022, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract A chaotic dynamics is typically characterized by the emergence of strange attractors with their fractal or multifractal structure. On the other hand, chaotic synchronization is a unique emergent self-organization phenomenon in nature. Classically, synchronization was characterized in terms of macroscopic parameters, such as the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents. Recently, however, we attempted a microscopic description of synchronization, called topological synchronization , and showed that chaotic synchronization is, in fact, a continuous process that starts in low-density areas of the attractor. Here we analyze the relation between the two emergent phenomena by shifting the descriptive level of topological synchronization to account for the multifractal nature of the visited attractors. Namely, we measure the generalized dimension of the system and monitor how it changes while increasing the coupling strength. We show that during the gradual process of topological adjustment in phase space, the multifractal structures of each strange attractor of the two coupled oscillators continuously converge, taking a similar form, until complete topological synchronization ensues. According to our results, chaotic synchronization has a specific trait in various systems, from continuous systems and discrete maps to high dimensional systems: synchronization initiates from the sparse areas of the attractor, and it creates what we termed as the ‘zipper effect’, a distinctive pattern in the multifractal structure of the system that reveals the microscopic buildup of the synchronization process. Topological synchronization offers, therefore, a more detailed microscopic description of chaotic synchronization and reveals new information about the process even in cases of high mismatch parameters. 

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3. The three-dimensional generalized Hénon map: Bifurcations and attractors

   https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0103436  

   Hampton, Amanda E.; Meiss, James D. (November 2022, Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science)

   We study dynamics of a generic quadratic diffeomorphism, a 3D generalization of the planar Hénon map. Focusing on the dissipative, orientation preserving case, we give a comprehensive parameter study of codimension-one and two bifurcations. Periodic orbits, born at resonant, Neimark–Sacker bifurcations, give rise to Arnold tongues in parameter space. Aperiodic attractors include invariant circles and chaotic orbits; these are distinguished by rotation number and Lyapunov exponents. Chaotic orbits include Hénon-like and Lorenz-like attractors, which can arise from period-doubling cascades, and those born from the destruction of invariant circles. The latter lie on paraboloids near the local unstable manifold of a fixed point. 

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4. Route towards extreme optical pulsation in linear cavity ultrafast fibre lasers

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-31725-7  

   Akosman, Ahmet E.; Sander, Michelle Y. (September 2018, Scientific Reports)

   Abstract Pathways towards the generation of extreme optical pulsation in a chaotic transition regime in a linear fibre laser cavity configuration are presented. In a thulium mode-locked fibre laser, extreme events that can be controllably induced by manipulating the cavity birefringence for pulse energies exceeding the single soliton pulse operating regime are studied in detail for the first time. While a solitonic pulsation structure at the fundamental repetition rate is maintained, additional energy is shed in a chaotic manner, leading to broader spectral generation and shorter pulse durations whose behaviour deviates significantly from a classical statistical distribution. These pulses display markedly different characteristics from any previously reported extreme events in fibre lasers associated with multiple solitons and pulse bunching, thus presenting a novel observation of extreme pulsation. Detailed noise studies indicate that significant enhancement of relaxation oscillations, modulation instability and the interplay with reabsorption mechanisms contribute in this transient chaotic regime. The extreme pulsation generated in a compact fibre laser without any additional nonlinear attractors can provide an attractive platform to accelerate the exploration of the underlying physics of the chaos observed in mode-locked laser systems and can lead to novel fibre laser cavity designs. 

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5. Data driven forecasting of aperiodic motions of non-autonomous systems

   https://doi.org///doi.org/10.1063/5.0045004  

   Agarwal, V. (January 2021, Chaos)

   null (Ed.)

   In the present effort, a data-driven modeling approach is undertaken to forecast aperiodic responses of non-autonomous systems. As a representative non-autonomous system, a harmonically forced Duffing oscillator is considered. Along with it, an experimental prototype of a Duffing oscillator is studied. Data corresponding to chaotic motions are obtained through simulations of forced oscillators with hardening and softening characteristics and experiments with a bistable oscillator. Portions of these datasets are used to train a neural machine and make response predictions and forecasts for motions on the corresponding attractors. The neural machine is constructed by using a deep recurrent neural network architecture. The experiments conducted with the different numerical and experimental chaotic time-series data confirm the effectiveness of the constructed neural network for the forecasting of non-autonomous system responses. 

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